Standards of care for pediatric clinical service delivery: A rapid scoping review.
Brittany Barber, Annette Elliott-Rose, Amanda Higgins and 6 others
PMID 40608409WHAT IT FOUND
Pediatric service standards were mapped across 53 sources.
Frameworks used three, four, and six service levels. Only eight described integration, mainly in pediatric intensive care and palliative care.
Key findings
01Fifty-three sources met inclusion criteria, including 42 academic articles and 11 gray literature sources.
02Twenty-seven sources reported levels or tiers of service, and service levels were defined within three, four, and six levels.
03Eight sources described integrated levels of service, mainly in pediatric intensive care and palliative care, through coordination of specialist and generalist services, transfer agreements, and one electronic health record system.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
English-language sources only, so guidelines or reports in other languages may be missing. The review focused on high-income countries, so it may not apply in lower-resource settings. Only publicly available sources were searched, so internal organizational policies may have been missed. The rapid review used a limited search, no second librarian peer review of search, and full-text screening by one reviewer. The review mapped frameworks and sources rather than testing effects on patient care.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by IWK Health Centre.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that tiered or integrated pediatric services improve patient care. It maps published and gray literature standards, mostly from high-income countries, and does not test their effects.