<p><strong>BACKGROUND: </strong>Parents of children in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) report inadequate communication and a lack of empathy during conversations with their clinicians.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>To assess quantitatively and qualitatively the contributions made by team members of different professions in communicating with parents during family meetings.</p>

<p><strong>DESIGN: </strong>Prospective observational study.</p>

<p><strong>SETTING/SUBJECTS: </strong>The pediatric CICU at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Subjects were members of the interprofessional team attending family meetings for patients admitted to the CICU longer than two weeks.</p>

<p><strong>MEASUREMENTS: </strong>We used quantitative conversation attribution and coding to compare durations of attendee contributions and contribution type by professional role. The SCOPE codebook and other quantitative codes drawn from best practices in family meetings were used to measure communication behaviors. A qualitative analysis of nurses' and social workers' contributions was used to identify themes not otherwise captured.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Across 10 meetings, physicians spoke for an average of 78.1% (SD 10.7%) of each meeting, non-physicians 9.6% (SD 7.8%), and parents 17.4% (SD 12.2%). Parental understanding was assessed an average of 0.2 (SD 0.4) times per meeting. Parents expressed emotion an average of 4.2 times per meeting (SD 7.1) and the clinical team responded empathetically 2.2 times per meeting (SD 4.3). All clinician empathic responses were a minority of their overall contributions. Conversation was almost exclusively between physicians and families until physicians indicated other team members could contribute.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Coordination of team members' roles in the meetings may improve parental engagement necessary for decision-making and empathic responses that are often missed.</p>

<p><strong>INTRODUCTION: </strong>Long-stay critically ill patients in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) may be at risk for inconsistencies in treatment plan, delay in plan progression, and patient/family dissatisfaction with communication. This article describes the development and evaluation of an intervention designed to improve continuity and communication delivered by continuity PICU attendings.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS AND ANALYSIS: </strong>A randomized controlled trial of an intervention in one PICU that was randomized at the patient level. Eligible patients and their parents included those admitted to the PICU for longer than one week and were anticipated to remain for an additional 7 days. The intervention, a Continuity Care Intensivist (CCI), included early assignment of a continuity attending (separate from a regularly scheduled service attending), standardization of the continuity role to ensure consistent team and family contact and facilitate timely decision making, and enhancement of CCI communication skills. The outcomes evaluated were 1) patient PICU length of stay, ventilator-dependent days, and hospital acquired infections, 2) parental mood and satisfaction with PICU communication, and 3) intensivist perception of acceptability of intervention. Intention to treat analysis will be completed using multivariable linear regression to determine the impact of the intervention on outcomes. Lessons have been learned about the appropriate enrollment criteria for patients to allow for impact of continuity attending, frequent prognostic uncertainty in determining which patients will become longer stay in the PICU, and the difficulty of achieving timely initial contact of continuity attending with patients given the CCI's other commitments.</p>