Pediatric Post–Acute Hospital Care: Striving for Identity and Value

Abstract

The landscape of hospital care for children is changing. Hospital clinicians are challenged to provide high-quality care to 2 increasingly complex groups of children: (1) healthy children admitted for high-severity acute illnesses or injury and (2) children admitted with lifelong, and often disabling, chronic conditions. Hospitalizations for both of these groups are becoming more prevalent, lengthy, and costly. In many situations, these children need weeks, or sometimes months, to recover from their illness or injury, with a sustained intensity of daily caregiving needs throughout their recovery period. Pediatric post–acute hospital care is a little-known and underused option in pediatric health care that could substantially help these children stabilize in a less restrictive and less costly environment than acute care hospitals can provide. In this commentary, we (1) propose the need and place for pediatric post–acute care hospitals along the continuum of care, (2) discuss the characteristics of children currently cared for in pediatric post–acute care hospitals, (3) suggest research opportunities and challenges, and (4) present issues related to the cost and value of pediatric post–acute care hospitals.