Variation in hospital admission in febrile children evaluated at the Emergency Department (ED) in Europe: PERFORM, a multicentre prospective observational study.

Large variation exists in admission rates of febrile children evaluated at European EDs, however, this variation is largely reduced after correcting for patient characteristics and therefore overall admission rates seem to adequately reflect disease severity or a potential for a severe disease course. However, for certain patient groups variation remains high even after adjusting for patient characteristics.