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A Quality Improvement Initiative to Improve the Administration of Systemic Corticosteroids in the Pediatric Emergency
Hannah Sneller1,2, Kaitlin Keenan3, Eric Hoppa4,5
1Division of Emergency Medicine, Children's Hospital and Medical Center, Omaha, Neb.
Insights
This quality improvement project successfully reduced the time to administer corticosteroids for pediatric asthma exacerbations in the emergency department (ED). The interventions improved timely steroid delivery and sustained these positive outcomes for 18 months.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Quality Improvement Science
- Asthma Management
Background:
- Timely corticosteroid administration is crucial for effective pediatric asthma care in emergency departments (EDs).
- Acute asthma exacerbations in children require prompt treatment to improve outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To decrease the time to corticosteroid delivery for pediatric patients with acute asthma exacerbations in the ED.
- To implement and sustain improvements in asthma care protocols using a Model for Improvement.
Main Methods:
- A single-center, prospective, multidisciplinary quality improvement (QI) project targeted pediatric ED patients (1-18 years) with acute asthma exacerbations.
- Interventions included staff reeducation, electronic health record modifications, and real-time feedback over 9 months.
- Data were collected for 5 months at baseline and 15 months post-intervention.
Main Results:
- The percentage of patients receiving steroids within 60 minutes improved from 59.3% to 84.3%.
- Mean time to steroid administration decreased from 71.4 to 48.1 minutes.
- No increase in ED return rates was observed.
Conclusions:
- The QI project significantly improved the timely administration of corticosteroids for pediatric asthma exacerbations in the ED.
- Sustained improvements in steroid delivery time were achieved for 18 months post-intervention.
Introduction:
Timely administration of corticosteroids improves asthma care in the pediatric emergency department (ED). Using the Model for Improvement, we aimed to decrease time to delivery of corticosteroids in patients presenting to the ED with an acute asthma exacerbation.
Methods:
This is a single-center, prospective, multidisciplinary quality improvement (QI) project targeting ED patients 1-18 years of age with an acute asthma exacerbation. We collected 5 months of baseline data from the arrival time of an ED patient with an asthma exacerbation with a Modified Pulmonary Index Score ≥5 to the time of administration of corticosteroids. A quality improvement project was launched in October 2017 involving multiple Plan-Do-Study-Act ramps. Improvement interventions continued for 9 months through June 2018, including reeducation of residents and nurses in the ED asthma order set and nursing treatment protocols, respectively, and changes to the electronic health record. Data were tacked for 15 additional months until September 2019. To promote the use of the nursing treatment protocol, we utilized real-time improvement feedback and continuing nursing education.
Results:
The mean percentage of patients receiving steroids within 60 minutes of arrival improved from 59.3% to 84.3% over the first 5 months. The mean time to the administration of steroids within 60 minutes of arrival improved from 71.4 to 48.1 minutes. There was no increase in ED return rates.
Conclusions:
Our project improved the percentage of patients with acute asthma exacerbations receiving steroids within 60 minutes of ED arrival and mean time to administration of steroids. We sustained improvement for 18 months after the implementation of our QI interventions.
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