720-777-0123
- Doctors & Departments
-
Conditions & Advice
- Overview
- Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources and Updates
- Conditions and Symptoms
- Is Your Child Sick
- Parent Resources
- The Connection Journey
- Calm A Crying Baby
- Sports Articles
- Dosage Tables
- Baby Guide
Get the most up-to-date COVID-19 information.
To help inform you about the latest coronavirus (COVID-19) updates, experts from Children's Colorado have gathered information from local and national health authorities.
-
Your Visit
- Overview
- Prepare for Your Visit
- Your Overnight Stay
- Send a Cheer Card
- Family and Patient Resources
- Patient Cost Estimate
- Insurance and Financial Resources
- Online Bill Pay
- Medical Records
- Policies and Procedures
Click to find the locations nearest youFind locations by region
See all locations -
Community
- Overview
- Addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis
- Calendar of Events
- Child Health Advocacy
- Community Health
- Community Partners
- Corporate Relations
- Global Health
- Patient Advocacy
- Patient Stories
- Pediatric Affiliations
- Support Children’s Colorado
- Specialty Outreach Clinics
Your Support Matters
Upcoming Events
Pediatric Download: All You Want to Know About Tubes and Tonsils
Tuesday, February 14, 2023ENT specialists Soham Roy, MD, Owen Darr, MD, and Jeremy Prager, MD, share...
- Research & Innovation
RSV, COVID, Cold and Flu Season Alert
Due to the ongoing cold and flu season, please note that some families with less urgent health concerns may experience longer wait times in our Emergency Departments. Learn how to get care now.
We’re here to deliver safe, thoughtful, high-quality care for kids who need it. Learn about visitation policies and all the ways we’re keeping patients safe, including face covering requirements at all locations.
More Options
Pediatric Intensive Care Quality and Patient Safety Outcomes
No one expects that their child will end up in the ICU. Our team is equipped to help patients and families traverse that journey, with the expertise, compassion and empathy that they need to heal.
In many ways, pediatric intensive care is the heart of our hospital — a hub that serves and drives outcomes for every specialty. Patients with acute disease and trauma, patients coming out of surgeries and organ transplants, patients with complicated conditions — the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Children's Hospital Colorado cares for them all.
As a regional supercenter and the only Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center in a 350-mile radius, our PICU cares for some of the most acute, high-risk pediatric conditions in seven states. And our PICU team handles higher volumes while providing better outcomes and shorter stays than the national average — by a wide margin.
At Children's Colorado, we evaluate our success by comparing our PICU outcomes with other top pediatric hospitals. Transparency with our patients and colleagues is one of the keys to our success as one of the top children's hospitals in the U.S.
We measure various outcomes to ensure that we're providing the highest level of pediatric critical care for our patients.
PICU volumes
Children's Colorado is home to one of the busiest PICUs in the country. In fact, our PICU treats more patients annually compared to the averages of our peer institutions. This means we have more experience treating patients with a wide variety of illnesses and injuries.
30%
More patients than the national average
3,000+
PICU patients treated per year
98%
Overall patient survival rate
With clinical staffing to match our busy unit, each child receives the individual attention and constant monitoring they need.
PICU survival rates
Our dedication to providing exceptional care to every patient allows us to achieve PICU survival rates among the best in the country. Our overall patient survival rate is 98%, outperforming the national average.
Mortality in our PICU is much lower than the national average. The following graph shows the standardized mortality ratio (SMR), or the predicted mortality given how severe a patient's illness is, against the actual outcome. The lower the ratio, the better. We then compare that measure against the national average.
Standardized Mortality Ratio (PRISM III)
Even though our patients are more critically ill than nearby hospitals’, they survive at a higher rate than expected. Our SMR is also below the national average.
Length of stay in the PICU
Our goal is to safely get kids home or to their next step in care as quickly as possible.
The standardized or severity-adjusted length-of-stay ratio (SLOSR) predicts length of stay based on the severity of the child's condition. Here, too, we are better than the national average.
Standardized LOS Ratio (PRISM III)
Our patients are sicker than at other PICUs, but they leave our PICU sooner than expected.
Effective and efficient care in the PICU
The gold standard for pediatric intensive care is to help kids get the best outcome as quickly as possible. That’s why we track our mortality ratio in relation to our length of stay ratio.
We compare our mortality ratio (SMR) to our length of stay ratio (SLOSR) and then judge that against national averages.
95th
Percentile in both standardized mortality ratio and length of stay ratio
We scored as well or better than 95% of similar institutions when comparing our standardized mortality ratio to our standardized length of stay ratio. Our patients have a higher survival rate than expected and a shorter length of stay than expected. We rank higher than almost all similar institutions when considering both of these measures.
Unless otherwise noted, these data are from Virtual Pediatric Systems, LLC (VPS) for 2018 to 2021 at the Anschutz Medical Campus.
"Our pediatric intensive care outcomes are a big part of the success of the entire institution. We're committed to continuously improving that care through quality improvement and research."Todd Carpenter, MD
Learn more about how we care for children with critical illness in our PICU.