TUESDAY, Oct. 4 (HealthDay News) -- For children admitted with asthma to pediatric hospitals, there are high levels of hospital compliance with Children's Asthma Care (CAC) quality measures for receiving asthma relievers (CAC-1) and systemic corticosteroids (CAC-2), and moderate compliance for discharge with a home-management care plan (CAC-3), according to a study published in the Oct. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Rustin B. Morse, M.D., from the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, and colleagues analyzed longitudinal trends in CAC measure compliance, and their association with outcomes in 37,267 children with asthma admissions from 2008 to 2010. The postdischarge emergency department utilization data and asthma-related readmission rates at seven, 30, and 90 days were evaluated.
The investigators found that the minimum quarterly measure compliance rates were 97.1 percent for CAC-1 and 89.5 percent for CAC-2, but their association with the specified outcomes could not be examined due to lack of variability. The CAC-2 compliance of individual hospitals exceeded 95 percent for 97.9 percent of the quarters. CAC-3 mean compliance for the initial and final three quarters of the study was 40.6 and 72.9 percent, respectively. The mean seven-, 30-, and 90-day postdischarge emergency department utilization rates were 1.5, 4.3, and 11.1 percent, respectively. The mean quarterly readmission rates were 1.4, 3.1, and 7.6 percent, respectively. The association between overall CAC-3 compliance and seven-, 30-, and 90-day post-discharge emergency department utilization or readmission rates were nonsignificant.
"Among children admitted to pediatric hospitals for asthma, there was high hospital-level compliance with CAC-1 and CAC-2 quality measures and moderate compliance with the CAC-3 measure," the authors write.
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