Decreasing Chest X-ray for Outpatient Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Investigators from Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, conducted a retrospective study to evaluate 10-year trends in chest x-ray (CXR) usage and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) diagnoses among children evaluated in the EDs of US pediatric tertiary care hospitals. Prior to conducting the study, the authors postulated that there would be a decrease over time in use of CXR accompanied by an increase in CAP diagnoses. For the study, they reviewed data from the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) database. The PHIS database includes demographic, encounter, procedure, and diagnosis information on children seen at 52 US tertiary pediatric hospitals. For the current study, data from 30 of the hospitals with complete information during the 10-year study period were included. Study participants were children, 3 months …