Chronic Critical Illness in Kids Research Program (CCI-Kids)

Due to improvements in the delivery of intensive care over the past two decades, the survival of even the most critically ill children has increased. An unintended consequence of this success has been a shift in the population of patients admitted to the PICU, with an increasing number of children with chronic complex medical conditions and significant long-term morbidities following critical illness. Furthermore, there is growing recognition that a subset of pediatric critical illness survivors may experience persistent multi-organ system dysfunction and functional morbidities following critical illness that subsequently render them with either a prolonged need for critical care support as inpatients, or dependence on medical technology in order to be cared for as outpatients. These children are increasingly referred to as having chronic critical illness (CCI). Despite being a uniquely high-risk population in the PICU, research on pediatric CCI remains limited and this patient population has been under-studied, in large part due to the lack of an accepted consensus case definition. The CCI-Kids Research Program seeks to systematically evaluate this high-risk PICU patient population and work towards developing a consensus case definition for pediatric CCI to operationalize in future research.

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Pediatric Chronic Critical Illness: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Defining Pediatric Chronic Critical Illness: A Scoping Review