Organisation of asthma care: what difference does it make? A systematic review of the literature

Effectiveness of paediatric asthma clinical pathways: a narrative systematic review

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effectiveness of clinical pathways (CPs) for paediatric asthma on length of hospital stay, additional visits due to asthma exacerbations, hospital cost, manpower and workload required for implementing CPs.

METHODS

Studies were eligible if they met the following criteria: children (≦18 years) with asthma, hospital or emergency department based, and study designs were (1) randomised controlled trial, (2) controlled clinical trial or (3) controlled before and after study. Two reviewers independently screened references, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias. We resolved disagreement by discussion between authors. Due to an insufficient number of studies and the heterogeneity of interventions and outcomes, we conducted a narrative systematic review with forest plots but did not pool results.

RESULTS

About 3155 relevant articles were identified through a literature search, 628 were duplicates removed, 2037 were excluded based on review of titles and abstracts and 117 were excluded because they did not meet inclusion criteria. Seven studies involving 2600 participants met the inclusion criteria. Using asthma CPs may decrease the length of hospital stay; however, CPs did not appear to reduce additional visits due to asthma exacerbations or reduce hospital costs. No eligible studies were found that quantified the manpower and workload for implementing CPs.

CONCLUSIONS

Current studies suggest CPs may reduce the length of hospital stay, but insufficient evidence is available on total costs or readmissions to justify extensive uptake of asthma CPs in paediatric inpatient care. Higher quality, large randomised controlled trials are required that measure costs and a wider range of outcomes.

Public health interventions for asthma: an umbrella review, 1990-2010

CONTEXT

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease increasingly prevalent in the U.S., particularly among children and certain minority groups. This umbrella review sought to assess and summarize existing systematic reviews of asthma-related interventions that might be carried out or supported by state or community asthma control programs, and to identify gaps in knowledge.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

Eleven databases were searched through September 2010, using terms related to four concepts: asthma, review, intervention, and NOT medication. Reviews of the effectiveness of medications, medical procedures, complementary and alternative medicine, psychological interventions, family therapy, and nutrients or nutritional supplements were excluded. Two coders screened each record and extracted data from the included reviews.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

Data analysis was conducted from May to December 2010. Of 42 included reviews, 19 assessed the effectiveness of education and/or self-management, nine the reduction of indoor triggers, nine interventions to improve the provision of health care, and five examined other interventions. Several reviews found consistent evidence of effectiveness for self-management education, and one review determined that comprehensive home-based interventions including the reduction of multiple indoor asthma triggers are effective for children. Other reviews found limited or insufficient evidence because of study limitations.

CONCLUSIONS

State or community asthma control programs should prioritize (1) implementing interventions for which the present review found evidence of effectiveness and (2) evaluating promising interventions that have not yet been adequately assessed.

Asthma in adults (acute)

INTRODUCTION

About 10% of adults have suffered an attack of asthma, and up to 5% of these have severe disease that responds poorly to treatment. Patients with severe disease have an increased risk of death, but patients with mild to moderate disease are also at risk of exacerbations. Most guidelines about the management of asthma follow stepwise protocols. This review does not endorse or follow any particular protocol, but presents the evidence about specific interventions.

METHODS AND OUTCOMES

We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical question: What are the effects of treatments for acute asthma? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to April 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically; please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

RESULTS

We found 100 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.

CONCLUSIONS

In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: beta(2) agonists (plus ipratropium bromide, pressured metered-dose inhalers, short-acting continuous nebulised, short-acting intermittent nebulised, short-acting iv, and inhaled formoterol); corticosteroids (inhaled); corticosteroids (single oral, combined inhaled, and short courses); education about acute asthma; generalist care; helium-oxygen mixture (heliox); magnesium sulphate (iv and adding isotonic nebulised magnesium to inhaled beta(2) agonists); mechanical ventilation; oxygen supplementation (controlled 28% oxygen and controlled 100% oxygen); and specialist care.

Case management for long-term conditions: implementation and processes

This paper presents a structured literature review that focused on comprehensive case management by nurses for adults with long-term conditions living in the community. The emphases of the review are the implementation of case-management approaches, including its roles, core tasks and components, and the coverage and quality of the reported implementation data. Twenty-nine studies were included: the majority were concerned with case management for frail older people, and others focused on people with multiple chronic diseases, high-cost patients, or those at high risk of hospital admissions. All the studies reported that case managers undertook the core tasks of assessment, care planning and the implementation of the care plan, but there was more variation in who carried out case finding, monitoring, review and case closure. Few studies provided adequate implementation information. On the basis of the reviewed evidence, three issues were identified as key to the coherent and sustainable implementation of case management for people with long-term conditions: fidelity to the core elements of case management; size of caseload; and case-management practice, incorporating matters relating to the continuity of care, the intensity and breadth of involvement, and control over resources. It is recommended that future evaluations of case-management interventions include a comprehensive process component or, at the very least, that interventions should be more fully described.

Developing decision support systems in clinical bioinformatics

There is a growing demand for tools to support clinicians utilize genomic results generated by molecular diagnostic and cytogenetic methods in support of their decision-making. This chapter reviews existing experience and methods for the design, implementation and evaluation of clinical bioinformatics electronic decision support systems (EDSS). It provides a roadmap for identifying decision tasks for automation and selecting optimal tools for building task-specific systems. Key success factors for EDSS implementation and evaluation are also outlined.

A meta-analysis of interventions to improve care for chronic illnesses

OBJECTIVE

To use empirical data from previously published literature to address 2 research questions: (1) Do interventions that incorporate at least 1 element of the Chronic Care Model (CCM) result in improved outcomes for specific chronic illnesses? (2) Are any elements essential for improved outcomes?

STUDY DESIGN

Meta-analysis.

METHODS

Articles were identified from narrative literature reviews and quantitative meta-analyses, each of which covered multiple bibliographic databases from inception to March 2003. We supplemented this strategy by searching the MEDLINE database (1998-2003) and by consulting experts. We included randomized and nonrandomized controlled trials of interventions that contained 1 or more elements of the CCM for asthma, congestive heart failure (CHF), depression, and diabetes. We extracted data on clinical outcomes, quality of life, and processes of care. We then used random-effects modeling to compute pooled standardized effect sizes and risk ratios.

RESULTS

Of 1345 abstracts screened, 112 studies contributed data to the meta-analysis: asthma, 27 studies; CHF, 21 studies; depression, 33 studies; and diabetes, 31 studies. Interventions with at least 1 CCM element had consistently beneficial effects on clinical outcomes and processes of care across all conditions studied. The effects on quality of life were mixed, with only the CHF and depression studies showing benefit. Publication bias was noted for the CHF studies and a subset of the asthma studies.

CONCLUSIONS

Interventions that contain at least 1 CCM element improve clinical outcomes and processes of care--and to a lesser extent, quality of life--for patients with chronic illnesses.

Evaluation of asthma prescription measures and health system performance based on emergency department utilization

BACKGROUND

Measures based on the use of either antiinflammatory and/or reliever medications have been used to evaluate clinical performance in asthma.

OBJECTIVE

We compared the association between 2 asthma prescription measures (APMs) and subsequent risk of emergency department (ED) asthma visits.

DESIGN

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of automated pharmacy and healthcare utilization data from 3 large geographically diverse managed care organizations.

PARTICIPANTS

We studied children, 3 to 15 years of age, with at least 1 encounter for asthma (hospitalization, ED, or ambulatory care), at least 1 dispensing of an asthma medication, and continuous enrollment between June 1996 and July 1997.

MEASURES

Two performance measures were derived for patients with persistent asthma: 1) the proportion of individuals who have received controller therapy and 2) the ratio of dispensed controller to dispensed reliever medications. Children with persistent asthma were identified using the Health Employers Data Information System (HEDIS) criteria of the National Committee on Quality Assurance definition. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess independent effects in models for ED visits.

RESULTS

Among children with persistent asthma, the dispensing of a controller was associated with a significantly lower risk of an ED visit as compared with children not dispensed a controller (odds ratio, 0.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.2-0.4). An association between the ratio of controller to reliever dispensing and the risk of subsequent ED visit was also observed, however, the underlying level of reliever dispensing modified the relationship. Among children with persistent asthma, the ratio of controller to reliever dispensing was inversely associated with risk of ED visit among children dispensed <4 relievers/person-year but no significant relationship was seen among children dispensed > or =4 relievers/person-year.

CONCLUSION

Among children with persistent asthma, the use of an asthma prescription measure (APM) can help stratify children based on their risk of future adverse events. The HEDIS measure, the dispensing of a controller medication among a population with persistent asthma, and the controller to reliever ratio are associated with the risk of subsequent ED visit. However, the association between the ratio measure and risk for ED visit is modified by the underlying level of reliever dispensing.

Systematic review of published multi-practice audits from British general practice

BACKGROUND

Audit has been a major part of attempts to improve patient care in Britain, with substantial resources devoted to it since the 1990 National Health Service reforms. Systematic reviews have considered audit to be of variable, but often moderate, effectiveness. However, these have included few studies from British primary care, and as quality improvement activities may be context specific, it is hard to judge how effective audit has been here.

RESULTS

A search for audits published in peer-reviewed journals revealed 48 two-stage projects carried out in British general practice, of which 27 principally concerned chronic disease management and nine prescribing. Most audits showed some improvements in performance, and those using controls showed 27/56 (48%) parameters had changed significantly (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

This review adds further evidence that audit can often be moderately effective. However, it is frequently used as one of a complex set of interventions making precise evaluation difficult. Those responsible for clinical governance will need to choose carefully the subjects they audit in order to use their limited resources to maximum effect. These projects are illustrative examples but once again do not identify any 'magic bullets' that would be highly likely to improve professional performance.

How and by whom care is delivered influences anti-inflammatory use in asthma: Results of a national population survey

BACKGROUND

Studies examining the influence of provider behavior and patterns of care delivery on the use of anti-inflammatory asthma therapy have been limited to selected populations or have been unable to assess the appropriateness of therapy for individuals. We have previously reported the influence of sociodemographic variables and asthma severity on reported use of asthma medications in the United States.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to examine the influence of patterns of care delivery and clinician behavioral factors on the use of anti-inflammatory medication by patients with asthma.

METHODS

We performed a cross-sectional national random digit dial household telephone survey in 1998 of adult patients and parents of children with current asthma. Respondents were classified as having current asthma if they had a physician's diagnosis of asthma and were either taking medication for asthma or had asthma symptoms during the past year.

RESULTS

One or more persons met the study criteria for current asthma in 3273 (7.8%) households in which a screening questionnaire was completed. Of the 2509 persons (721 children <16 years of age) with current asthma interviewed, 507 (20.1%) reported current use of anti-inflammatory medication. In a multiple logistic regression model controlling for asthma symptoms, reported anti-inflammatory use was significantly associated with patients reporting their physician having an excellent ability to explain asthma management (odds ratio [OR], 1.47; 95% CI, 1.09-1.98), scheduling regular visits to a physician for asthma (OR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.02-1.64), having a written asthma action plan (OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.29-2.06), and being of white, non-Hispanic ethnicity (OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.19-1.98), along with markers of greater asthma morbidity, missing 6 or more days from work or school in the past year (OR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.01-1.65), and hospitalization for asthma in the past year (OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.19-2.53). Anti-inflammatory use was less likely to be reported with younger age (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.73-0.94), lower long-term asthma symptom burden (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.71-0.94), use of 4 or fewer reliever inhaler canisters in the past year (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.43-0.58), and smoking (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.37-0.68).

CONCLUSION

How asthma care is delivered influences the use of anti-inflammatory medication. Strategies to increase regular evaluation by a physician interested in asthma, particularly for minority patients, and to increase a physician's ability to communicate asthma management to patients might improve use of anti-inflammatory therapy among patients with asthma.

Cost effectiveness of guideline advice for children with asthma: a literature review

Asthma is an important chronic disease among children. This study reviews the cost effectiveness of interventions in the long-term care of asthmatic children and compares these results with treatment advice in four current guidelines. Cost-effectiveness studies were searched for in Medline, Embase, Healthstar, Biosis, and the Office of Health Economics-Health Economic Evaluations Database (OHE-HEED), and the Cochrane Library was searched for meta-analyses of clinical trials. In the four reviewed guidelines, cost effectiveness is not explicitly used as a criterion. The cost-effectiveness studies show sufficient evidence for the cost effectiveness of treatment with inhaled steroids and for self-management programs for severe asthmatic patients. Inclusion of these results in the guidelines would not lead to significant changes in current treatment advice. The effectiveness of various measures for trigger avoidance is not fully proven, and hence neither is their cost effectiveness. Available information on the cost effectiveness of cromolyn could be used to focus the guidelines. Finally, evidence exists that organizational interventions, e.g., the employment of asthma nurses, can result in cost savings, but it is unclear to what extent these results can be generalized. More cost-effectiveness studies are needed, especially on long-acting bronchodilators and self-management programs for mild and moderate asthma, in order to help make the guidelines more informative and reduce the differences between them.

Role of the specialist in the treatment of asthma

The preponderance of literature supports the efficacy of specialist care for asthma. Not every patient with asthma needs to be treated by a specialist, however. An optimal health care delivery model for asthma (i.e. one that provides high quality care that is cost effective) requires some mix of primary and specialty services. A tiered model of care in which the primary care physician acts as the first point of contact and decision-maker with regard to referral and that includes asthma specialists, including allergists, pulmonologists, and other health care professionals with expertise in asthma, appears to be a reasonable solution. The number of studies that compare various models for organizing asthma care is limited, however. Thus, further research is needed to determine how best to align the roles of primary care physicians, allied health professionals, and subspecialists in order to ensure seamless communication and cost-effective care that is targeted to individual patient needs.

Evaluating an integrated approach to clinical quality improvement: clinical guidelines, quality measurement, and supportive system design

BACKGROUND

Implementing clinical practice guidelines to change patient outcomes presents a challenge. Studies of single interventions focused on changing provider behavior demonstrate modest effects, suggesting that effective guideline implementation requires a multifaceted approach. Traditional biomedical research designs are not well suited to evaluating systems interventions.

OBJECTIVES

RAND and the Army Medical Department collaborated to develop and evaluate a system for implementing guidelines and documenting their effects on patient care.

RESEARCH DESIGN

The evaluation design blended quality improvement, case study, and epidemiologic methods. A formative evaluation of implementation process and an outcome evaluation of patient impact were combined.

SUBJECTS

Guidelines were implemented in 3 successive demonstrations targeting low back pain, asthma, and diabetes. This paper reports on the first wave of 4 facilities implementing a low back pain guideline.

METHODS

Organizational climate and culture, motivation, leadership commitment, and resources were assessed. Selected indicators of processes and outcomes of care were compared before, during, and after guideline implementation at the demonstration facilities and at comparison facilities. Logistic regression analysis was used to test for guideline effects on patient care.

RESULTS

Process evaluation documented varied approaches to quality improvement across sites. Outcome evaluation revealed a significant downward trend in the percentage of acute low back pain patients referred to physical therapy or chiropractic care (10.7% to 7.2%) at demonstration sites and no such trend at control sites.

CONCLUSIONS

Preliminary results suggest the power of this design to stimulate improvements in guideline implementation while retaining the power to evaluate rigorously effects on patient care.

The socio-economics of asthma

Is it healthy to be wealthy? The answer to this simple but provocative question can be found in a wide variety of published studies, which evaluate the socio-economic equity of healthcare and the socio-economic impact of diseases. Studies have focused on avoidable mortality, race and ethnicity, environment and access to healthcare services, and many found supporting facts of the above thesis, mostly based on cardiovascular diseases. But what about asthma? Additional factors such as risk behaviours e.g. smoking, excessive use of beta-agonists or general non-compliance with asthma medication have been investigated and found to be contributing to adverse health outcomes. Prevalence and incidence of asthma is higher in people with high socio-economic status (SES), but disease severity and premature mortality is more than twice as common in populations with low SES. The key to reduce the large socio-economic impact is, therefore, to improve the management of patients with more severe diseases. Because those patients are found more often in low SES groups, new approaches such as community disease management programmes, probably provided by a multi-disciplinary care team, have to be established. Current financial incentives within the largely sectored healthcare system are counterproductive. Furthermore, a better co-ordination of the goals of public healthcare experts with those providing individual 'clinical' healthcare is needed. Clearly communicated healthcare goals are needed to create common incentives and shared visions. Cornerstones of the new disease management efforts are co-ordinated care, high quality innovative medicines and a well-educated patient. This might help improve the implementation of current asthma management knowledge into practice.

Content and outcomes of Dutch nurse clinics for children with asthma

Dutch specialist asthma nurses run extramural and transmural nurse clinics for children with asthma. Extramural clinics are run under the responsibility and in the premises of a home care organization. Transmural clinics are run in an outpatient clinic in close collaboration and joint responsibility between home care organizations and hospitals. Effects of and differences between these clinics were determined by using a quasiexperimental design. Visiting a nurse clinic appears to result in a reduced information need and reduced use of health care services. Parents of asthmatic children visiting transmural nurse clinics appeared to have a lower information need than those attending extramural nurse clinics.

Changing clinical practice: views about the management of adult asthma

A case study of clinical practice in adult asthma is presented. The case is part of a larger project, funded by the North Thames NHS Executive Research and Development Programme, that sought to explore the part played by clinicians in the implementation of research and development into practice in two areas: adult asthma and glue ear in children. The first case of glue ear in children was reported in a previous issue of this journal (Quality in Health Care 1999;8:99-107). Background information from secondary sources on the condition, treatment, and organisation and location of care is followed by an account of the results of semistructured interviews with 159 clinicians. The findings are reported in two sections: clinical management and the organisation of care, and clinicians' accounts of what, why, and how they introduce changes into their practice. The way clinicians talk about their learning, their expressed views on acceptable practice, and their willingness to change were shown to be informed by construction of legitimate and sufficient evidence, respected colleagues, and accumulated individual experience. There was little open acknowledgment of the influence of organisational factors in influencing practice. To investigate whether relationships between task performance and organisational arrangements found in other sectors apply to UK health, more robust measures by which performance can be evaluated are needed.