Improving Hospital Resource Utilization and Maintaining Quality of Care through a Nurse Practitioner-Led Pediatric Head Injury Outpatient Clinic.

Objective: The authors evaluated hospital resource utilization and care quality relative to the establishment of a PNP-led outpatient clinic for head injury care.

Method: Charts for pediatric head injury patients at a single institution between 2017 and 2023 were reviewed and grouped relative to PNP-led clinic establishment on January 1, 2019.

Results: Prior to clinic establishment, there were 217 unique patients with 1.16 visits per patient (with 20% seen by a PNP). Afterwards, there were 420 patients with 1.15 visits per patient (with 73% seen by a PNP). For symptomatic patients, PNPs provided return to school/activity planning, referrals to physical/occupational therapy and early intervention, and continued management after referral to subspecialty care at significantly higher rates. MDs referred symptomatic patients out of their care at significantly higher rates.

Discussion: PNP-led outpatient clinics can manage nonemergent outpatient head injury case volume, increasing capacity to organize care for symptomatic patients, and maximizing value from hospital resource utilization.