Irish Paediatric Critical Care Audit (IPCCA)

Data Collection Type
National data collections of health and social care in Ireland
Organisation

National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA).

Web address
https://www.noca.ie/
Year established

2015

Statement of purpose

The overall purpose of the IPCCA is to improve critical care services provided to paediatric patients by measuring the quality of care and outcomes against predetermined standards, using data from the UK and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) as a whole as a benchmark.

Objectives:

  • Measure the quality of care in CHI at Crumlin and CHI at Temple Street, and benchmark this against other PCCUs across the UK
  • Provide data on the epidemiology and complexity of care provided for each patient. This has the potential to link in with best practice tariffs reimbursement in the future
  • Improve the quality of data for the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) scheme by providing data on diagnosis and procedures arising while the patient is in PCCU
  • Support Irish and international research in order to enhance patient care
  • Make recommendations based on validated data.
    In scope:
  • All admissions of children to paediatric critical care units (PCCUs) in Ireland (CHI at Crumlin and CHI at Temple Street)
  • Admissions of children to adult ICU in Ireland
  • Paediatric critical care retrieval and transport of paediatric patients requiring critical care treatment.
    Out of scope:
  • Data on children who are aged 16 years and over admitted to ICU.
    • Coverage (geographical and temporal)

    National audit with data collection from public hospitals with Paediatric critical care units, the regional Paediatric High Dependency Unit at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) and children aged

    Description/Summary

    This audit provides a complete account of activity and outcomes in all paediatric intensive care units providing critical care to children in the ROI. In addition to data from specialised paediatric critical care units and from transfer and retrieval services that traditionally provide data to PICANet (based in the UK), this audit also includes data from adult ICUs and the regional Paediatric High Dependency Unit at UHL, giving a complete description of national activity.

    Data users

    Patients and their parents and carers, patient advocacy groups, healthcare professionals, hospital managers and hospital groups, multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) caring for patients in PCCUs or ICUs, policy-makers.

    Data content

    - Admission data: each child’s demographic details, including their date of birth, ethnicity and sex. The PICANet database also collects details about where children are admitted from, their date of admission, their clinical diagnoses, and some physiological parameters on admission to PCCU, including arterial blood gas results, blood pressure, medical history and ventilation status. Data on outcome and discharge details are also included. The medical interventions that each child receives each day are also recorded as part of the audit
    - Referral data: These include details of the referring hospital, demographic details about the child, the grade of the referring doctor or nurse, the transport team involved, and the destination PCCU
    - Transport data: These include details about the transport team, journey times, any interventions carried out, and critical incidents.

    Data dictionary

    https://www.picanet.org.uk/data-collection/data-manuals-and-guidance/

    Full list of data set points is available from NOCA at auditinfo@noca.ie

    National-level identifier variables

    No national identifiers are included.

    Equity stratifiers

    Yes, each child’s demographic details, including their date of birth, ethnicity and sex.

    Data collection methodology

    Each hospital/ transport organisation submits data to PICANet via a secure web-based portal.

    Data submission can involve direct entry of patient data or monthly upload of a data file from an existing clinical information system. The dataset is frozen on 31 March annually.

    Data for children admitted to adult ICU’s is provided by NOCA’s INICUA ICNARC dataset.

    Clinical coding scheme

    SNOMED CT.

    CT3 The Read diagnostic codes.

    Size of national collection

    On average data on ~1500 admission records per annum.

    Publication frequency

    NOCA produces national reports at regular intervals.

    PICANet produces annual audit reports, which monitor activity, and makes comparisons over a 3-year reporting period for PCCUs across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (NI) and the ROI.

    Accessing data

    https://www.noca.ie/about-noca/access-to-audit-data

    Open data portal access

    No.

    Email contact
    auditinfo@noca.ie
    Telephone contact
    +353 1 4028577