Hospital-Initiated Care Bundle, Posthospitalization Care, and Outcomes in Adults with Asthma Exacerbation

BACKGROUND: Hospitalization for asthma exacerbation is an opportune setting for initiating preventive efforts. However, hospital-initiated preventive asthma care remains underdeveloped and its effectiveness is uncertain. OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of a hospital-initiated asthma care bundle on posthospitalization asthma care and clinical outcomes. METHODS: Prospective multicenter study of adults (18-54 years) hospitalized for asthma exacerbation in 2017 to 2019. During the hospitalization, we implemented an asthma-care bundle (inpatient laboratory testing, asthma education, and discharge care), and prospectively measured chronic asthma care (eg, immunoglobulin E testing, specialist care) and asthma exacerbation (ie, systemic corticosteroid use, emergency department [ED] visit, hospitalizations) outcomes. By applying a self-controlled case series method, we examined within-person changes in these outcomes before (2-year period) and after (1-year period) the bundle implementation. RESULTS: Of 103 adults hospitalized for asthma exacerbation, the median age was 40 years and 72% were female. Compared with the preimplementation period, the postimplementation period had improved posthospitalized asthma care, including serum specific immunoglobulin E testing (rate ratio [RR] 2.18; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.99-4.84; P [.051) and evaluation by asthma specialist (RR 2.66; 95% CI 1.77-4.04; P <.001). Likewise, after care bundle implementation, patients had significantly lower annual rates of systemic corticosteroid use (4.2 vs 2.9 per person-year; RR 0.70; 95% CI 0.61-0.80; P <.001), ED visits (3.2 vs 2.7 per person-year; RR 0.83; 95% CI 0.72-0.95; P [.008), and hospitalizations (2.1 vs 1.8 per person-year; RR 0.82; 95% CI 0.69-0.97; P [.02). Stratified analyses by sex, race and ethnicity, and health insurance yielded consistent results. CONCLUSIONS: After hospital-initiated care bundle implementation, patients had improved posthospitalization care and reduced rates of asthmaexacerbation. (C) 2021 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Automated summary

This study demonstrated that the implementation of a hospital-initiated asthma care bundle significantly improved posthospitalization care for asthma patients and reduced the rates of asthma exacerbation.