Benefits of subspecialty adherence after asthma hospitalization and patient perceived barriers to care.

BACKGROUND

Comparative studies have demonstrated that asthma education to pediatric patients decreases average hospital usage and that allergy specialists provide stronger asthma education and more improved outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the real-world benefits of allergy subspecialty involvement outside inpatient consultation and the impediments for patients in establishing allergy subspecialty care.

METHODS

The study population was composed mostly of minority children 0 to 18 years old seen at a large university-affiliated stand-alone children's hospital who had a hospital discharge diagnosis of asthma from 2009 to 2013. The retrospective portion of the study compared all variables pertaining to asthma, teaching, and discharge reconciliation for the following subgroups: patients recommended to allergy and immunology (AI) follow-up who adhered to the appointment (adherent), patients recommended to AI follow-up who did not adhere (nonadherent), and patients not recommended to AI follow-up (non-referred). In the phone interview portion of the study, the nonadherent patients were contacted to identify barriers to AI follow-up.

RESULTS

Of the referred sample, the adherent group had significantly fewer visits to the pediatric intensive care unit, days in the pediatric intensive care unit, and days in the hospital. Providing more specific hospital discharge instructions increased AI follow-up and hospital teaching given on the baseline admission decreased hospital visits. Phone interviews showed that nonadherent patients most commonly missed follow-up because the parents believed it unnecessary because their child showed acute improvement or from advice from their primary care physician.

CONCLUSION

These results showed improvement in outcomes for patients who attended AI follow-up and specifically identified key barriers that could be addressed in a standardized form to prevent nonadherence in the future.