Improving Asthma Action Plan Completion Rates across Five Divisions in an Academic Children's Hospital

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Pulmonology
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Chronic Disease Management

Background:

• Childhood asthma is a prevalent chronic condition requiring regular management.
• Asthma Action Plans (AAPs) are crucial for personalized asthma self-management and necessitate annual updates.
• Healthcare providers encounter challenges in consistently completing AAPs for pediatric asthma patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance the percentage of pediatric patients with up-to-date Asthma Action Plans (AAPs) from 80% to 85% within a five-division healthcare system.
• To implement and evaluate a quality improvement initiative focused on improving AAP completion rates.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project utilized the Model for Improvement framework.
• A cross-divisional competition among five hospital divisions (Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine, Allergy, Pulmonary, two Primary Care) was implemented from June to October 2021.
• Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles and monthly Learning Sessions facilitated intervention trials and collaboration.

Main Results:

• Statistical process control analysis showed an increase in the overall AAP completion rate from a baseline of 80% to 87%.
• All participating divisions demonstrated improved AAP completion rates during the intervention period.
• Variability in the sustainment of improved completion rates was observed across divisions.

Conclusions:

• A cross-divisional competition effectively motivated healthcare divisions to enhance processes for increasing AAP completion rates.
• This competitive quality improvement approach fostered engagement and idea sharing, leading to improved performance.
• The competition model may be applicable to other quality improvement initiatives in healthcare.