The role of WhatsApp? in pediatric difficult airway management: A study from the PeDI Collaborative

Background: Management of the pediatric difficult airway can present unique clinical challenges. The Pediatric Difficult Intubation Collaborative (PeDI-C) is an international collaborative group engaging in quality improvement and research in children with difficult airways. The PeDI-C established a WhatsApp (TM) group to facilitate real-time discussions around the management of the difficult airway in pediatric patients. The goals of this study were to evaluate the patterns of use of the WhatsApp (TM) group, themes on messages posted on pediatric difficult airway management and to assess the perceived usefulness of the WhatsApp (TM) group by the PeDI-C members.Method: Following research ethics approval, we performed a database analysis on the archived discussion of the PeDI-C WhatsApp (TM) group from 2014 to 2019 and surveyed members to assess the perceived usefulness of the PeDI-C WhatsApp (TM) group.Results: 5781 messages were reviewed with 350 (6.0%) original stems. The three most common original stem types were advice seeking 98 (28%), announcements 85 (24.2%), and clinical case-sharing 78 (22.2%). The median number of responses to original stems was 9 [2-21.3]. Post types associated with increased responses included those seeking advice on medication/equipment (regression coefficient 0.78, 95% CI [0.41-1.16]; p < .0001); seeking advice on patient care (regression coefficient 1.16, 95% CI [0.86-1.45]; p < .0001), sharing advice on medication/equipment availability (regression coefficient 0.87, 95% CI [0.33-1.40], p < .0016), and clinical case-sharing (regression coefficient 1.2547, 95% CI [0.9401-1.5693] p < .0001). 46/64 members of the group responded to the survey. Replies offering advice regarding patient management scenarios were found to be of most interest and 77% of surveyed members found the discussion translatable into their own clinical practice.Discussion: The PeDI-C WhatsApp (TM) group has facilitated timely knowledge exchange on pediatric difficult airway management across the world. Participants are satisfied with the role the Whatsapp (TM) group is playing.