Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection Rates by Chronic Condition Groups in Children.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010 mandated that Medicaid and Medicare adopt payment-reduction policies that document hospital-acquired conditions. Central line–associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) is one of the most prevalent, potentially preventable acquired conditions in hospitalized children. The epidemiology of CLABSIs in PICUs and successes in reducing CLABSIs have been well described. Although line days are a recognized way of measuring risk of CLABSIs, there is no method to identify line days in the hospital discharge administrative billing data used for public reporting. Insertions of central lines and the risk of CLABSI are likely to increase according to the complexity of underlying conditions. In the absence of documentation of line days in administrative data, stratification of patient populations by medical complexity could be a useful way to determine CLABSI risk.