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CC BY 4.0 · Eur J Pediatr Surg
DOI: 10.1055/a-2551-2056
Special Report

The European Pediatric Surgical Audit: Improving Quality of Care in Rare Congenital Malformations

Nadine M. Teunissen 
1   Department of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
,
Daniel Rossi 
1   Department of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2   Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
,
Michel W. Wouters 
3   Dutch Institute of Clinical Auditing, Leiden, The Netherlands
,
Simon Eaton 
4   Department of Pediatric Surgery, University College London Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom
,
L.W. Ernest van Heurn
5   Department of Pediatric Surgery, Emma Children's Hospital, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
,
Rene Wijnen
1   Department of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
› Institutsangaben Funding The European Commission funded the EPSA|ERNICA Registry in the third and Fourth Health Programs (HP-PJ-219 and EU4H-2022-ERN-IBA). Additionally, the Dutch branch of EPSA is continuously supported by Zorgverzekeraars Nederland (ZN), a collaborative institute comprising 10 health care insurance companies in the Netherlands.
S.E. acknowledges support from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Both funding sources of the EPSA|ERNICA registry, the European Commission and ZN, were not involved in the conception, drafting, and submission of this paper.
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Abstract

Since 2019, the European Pediatric Surgical Audit (EPSA) has been the official registry of the European Reference Network for Inherited and Congenital Anomalies (ERNICA). The primary aim of this prospective patient registry is benchmarking (quality of) care for patients with rare congenital malformations throughout Europe. Data collected comprise baseline, treatment, and outcome variables, permitting calculation of disease-specific, hospital-level quality indicator results reflecting between-hospital variation. This practice and outcome variation is fed back as actionable information to clinicians on a web-based, real-time dashboard to help focus local and central improvement initiatives. Secondly, realizing joint research initiatives with quality improvement purposes through secondary data use will increase our knowledge of these rare conditions and optimize care. Currently, 27 hospitals in 15 European countries have connected to this unique, European-wide audit. Henceforward, the focus will be on the further expansion of hospitals and diseases, as EPSA aspires to become all-encompassing, including all European patients with congenital malformations.

Keywords

pediatric surgery - audit - rare congenital malformations - quality of care

Authors' Contributions

Conception and design: N.M.T., S.E., L.W.E.v.H., R.W.

Collection and assembly of data: all (collaborating) authors

Data curation and data analysis: N.M.T., D.R.

Data interpretation: all (collaborating) authors

Manuscript writing of original draft: N.M.T., D.R.

Manuscript reviewing and editing: all (collaborating) authors


Supplementary Material



Publikationsverlauf

Eingereicht: 15. Dezember 2023

Angenommen: 04. März 2025

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
15. April 2025

© 2025. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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