Pediatric Asthma Care in US Emergency Departments

Benchmarks for the Emergency Department Care of Children With Asthma, Bronchiolitis, and Croup

“…22 In our previous study of the 2005 ED care of children with ABC, we were unable to compare the performance of children's hospitals with the group as a whole because of sample size limitations. This comparison would be useful in confirming the findings of previous research 8,21,22 and in determining whether children's hospitals EDs are industry leaders whose performance can be used to calculate achievable benchmarks of high performance.…”

“…Yet, despite the similarity between the FCH and national ED data, US ED rates are less that those reported from Australia (980%). 24 Although variation in ED care for ABC has been previously reported, 8,21,22,25 all of the health system and enabling factors contributing to the variation in EDs nationally are unknown. By constructing these benchmarks, we hope to enable all EDs to study the factors contributing to their level of performance and implement change to emulate the processes of care associated with best practice.…”

The Asthma Therapy Assessment Questionnaire (ATAQ) for Children and Adolescents

“…Despite ad-vances in medication, both clinical practice and self-management are inadequate for many patients. [2][3][4] In the context of managed care and diminishing healthcare resources, screening tools have the potential to provide useful information to both clinicians and the patients and families they care for. If identified, issues related to symptom control, problems with medication taking or knowledge base, or perceived problems with the quality of care can be addressed and contribute to better patient outcomes.…”

Predicting the Need for Hospitalization in Acute Childhood Asthma Using End-tidal Capnography

“…The difficulty in obtaining adequate patient effort may account for the limited use of peak flow monitoring in pediatric asthma exacerbations, even among children considered old enough to perform the maneuver. 16,17 The only study that failed to show a correlation between capnography parameters and other measures of airway obstruction was that of Evered et al 18 In a group of 11 patients whose asthma severity was not described, the authors found that neither the slope of the alveolar plateau nor the Q angle measured before and after bronchodilator therapy correlated with pulmonary index or with 2 recommended measures of pulmonary function, peak expiratory flow rate or forced expiratory volume in 1 second. Their goal was to determine whether capnography indices changed with bronchodilator therapy rather than whether baseline capnography is associated with hospitalization.…”