Harnessing Data to Drive Change: the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4) Experience

Purpose of Review: Summarize the unique characteristics and core pillars of the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4) that have likely contributed to the success of this quality improvement collaborative and provide examples that illustrate how participation in PC4 has resulted in improved patient outcomes. Recent findings: PC4 was formed in 2009 with the mission to enhance cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) medicine and improve the quality of care for all patients with critical congenital and pediatric acquired heart disease through high-impact science, collaborative learning, and identification and dissemination of evidence-based best practices. PC4 has grown to over 60 participating centers, and data from the clinical registry has led to publication of 34 manuscripts and presentation of 46 abstracts. Additionally, participation in PC4 has been shown to be associated with a significant decrease in risk-adjusted post-operative mortality, morbidity, and resource utilization in a recent review. Summary: The goal of multi-institutional collaboratives and databases is to improve patient outcomes; however, effective quality improvement requires more than collecting data. The PC4 has demonstrated success in harnessing data to drive change and improve outcomes for patients with pediatric congenital and acquired heart disease. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.