UP Patterns Utilization of Two High Risk Infant Groups C2582

Premature infants, and prenatally drug-exposed infants, are two well-recognized groups of high risk for at-birth hospitalization, high medical costs, and long-term disability requiring specialized and intermittent care. Better understanding of healthcare utilization patterns of these high-risk infants could provide valuable insights for improvements in care and services. Our research team is based at the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington KY. We have a long-standing commitment to providing the best possible patient care and we have an interest in better understanding long term outcomes for the infants cared for at our facility, and in relation to other regions in the state. The goals of this specific project are to develop a better understanding of patterns of healthcare utilization for two specific high-risk patient groups that our Children’s Hospital cares for, and to establish processes for utilizing available data and resources to define opportunities for improvements in care for some of the most vulnerable residents of Kentucky. Our over-arching hypothesis is that there are regional patterns with respect to healthcare utilization for these two special and high-risk infant subgroups. Our Specific Aims are: Aim 1-Using KY Medicaid Database, identify two specific cohorts of high-risk infants in the KY Medicaid database from 2016-2019: 1a: Infants born prematurely, 1b: Infants born following in utero drug-exposure. Aim 2-Collect all healthcare utilization information for each patient identified in Aim 1 as well as relevant demographic data up to age 2yrs. Aim 3-Investigate trends in postnatal healthcare utilization in relation to initial hospitalization (first 30 days of life) and in relation to residential site (zip-code or other de-identified address definition). These studies will provide new insights regarding patterns in medical care and healthcare utilization for some of the most vulnerable (and costly) patients in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Our efforts can provide a framework for data-driven improvements in patient care and services to enhance the quality of life and productivity of young children and their families.