Days Alive Out of Health Care: A Novel Measure of Health Status After Congenital Heart Surgery
Authors' conclusion
In this data set of children with Medicaid coverage, total DAoH is an easily reproducible, patient-centered outcome that should be considered for assessment of longitudinal outcomes for neonates and infants undergoing cardiac surgery.
Study context
- Population
- New York State Medicaid-enrolled children undergoing initial neonatal or infant cardiac surgery, 2006 to 2018
- Participants
- 2,519 children
- Outcome
- Days alive and out of health care/hospital (DAoH)
- Follow-up
- 2 years
Methodological detailslinked registry, National Death Index and Medicaid claims data
- Linked registry, National Death Index and Medicaid claims data
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
DAoH (0-730 days)
<100 DAoH
10.4%
n = 261
>700 DAoH
21.6%
n = 545
Died during birth admission (0 DAoH)
5.9%
n = 149
Cardiac disease complexity, weight at surgery, noncardiac preoperative comorbidities and other preoperative risk factors significantly associated with the outcomes
P <0.001
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Inpatient days only · second year of life
- Distribution more left-skewed; share of health care days attributable to outpatient days
- 40%
- Findings otherwise largely insensitive to health care type weightings
Original publication
Days Alive Out of Health Care: A Novel Measure of Health Status After Congenital Heart Surgery. J Am Coll Cardiol. Published 5 February 2025. doi:10.
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it