Patient Encounters

ABSTRACT. Objectives. Pediatric observation units (OUs) are becoming more common in hospitals through-out the United States, providing physicians with a new disposition option for children who are judged to be too ill for home management. Some OUs function as “hy-brid ” units, serving both acutely ill and injured observa-tion patients as well as scheduled elective procedure patients. How best to utilize this new resource is not yet defined. We studied the utilization of our pediatric hy-brid OU during the first 2 years of operation to determine (1) the spectrum and frequency of diagnoses treated, (2) diagnoses and procedures most (and least) likely to attain discharge successfully within 24 hours, and (3) whether age was associated with inability to be discharged from the OU within 24 hours