To identify interstage best practices associated with lower mortality, we studied National Pediatric Cardiology Quality Improvement Collaborative centres registry using a positive deviance approach.

Positive deviant and control centre team members were interviewed to identify potential interstage best practices. Subsequently, all collaborative centres were surveyed on the use of these practices to test their associations with centre mortality. Questionnaires were scored using Likert scales; the overall score was linearly transformed to a 0–100-point scale with higher scores indicating increased use of practices. Mortality was based on patients enrolled after a centre’s first year in the collaborative. Centre mortality rates were divided into tertiles. Survey scores for the low mortality tertile were compared with the other tertiles.

For this study, seven positive deviant and four control teams were interviewed. A total of 20 potential best practices were identified, including team composition, improvement practices, and parent involvement. Questionnaires were completed by 36/43 eligible centres, providing 1504 patients for analysis. Average survey score was 50.2 (SD 13.4). Average mortality was 6.1% (SD 4.1). There was no correlation between survey scores and mortality (r=0.14, p=0.41). The one practice associated with the low mortality tertile was frequency of discussion of interstage results: 58.3% of low mortality teams discussed results at least monthly versus 8.4% of the middle and high tertile centres (p=0.02).

Low-mortality centres more frequently discuss interstage results than high-mortality centres. Heightened awareness of outcomes may influence practice; however, further study is needed to understand the variation in outcomes across centres.