Hospital asthma grades not linked to healthier kids

Hospitals that meet performance standards for treating kids with asthma aren't any better at keeping those kids from showing up in the emergency room with asthma problems in the future, according to new research.

The results call into question whether the standards, used to grade the hospitals on their asthma care, are helpful if they don't translate into real patient improvements, researchers said.

Specifically, hospitals following so-called process measures that encourage sending young asthma patients home with a plan for managing their condition did not result in the kids having fewer hospitalizations and ER trips.

The problem, researchers said, may be that there's no way to make sure those asthma management plans were explained in a way that families understood, or that they followed doctors' recommendations at discharge.

"Intuitively having a home management plan of care... that makes perfect sense and that should improve their outcomes," said lead study author Dr. Rustin Morse, from Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona.

However, "simply giving the patient a paper, which is really what they were able to measure, doesn't necessarily mean that it was explained in a thorough way, that the family understood it (and) that they were able to get the medications they were prescribed," added Dr. Charles Homer, of the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality and Children's Hospital Boston, who wrote a commentary on the study.

The Joint Commission, an organization that accredits and certifies hospitals, uses the children's asthma care measures to grade those hospitals based on how often they give kids certain kinds of asthma medications while in the hospital and provide a discharge plan for when they leave.

Asthma is a serious and potentially life threatening illness that affects many children. Fortunately, there are many medications that can help control and prevent asthma attacks. However, it can be difficult to understand how all of the different medications are supposed to be used and what you should be doing to help manage your child's asthma.

The symptoms of asthma for most children include coughing, wheezing and difficulty breathing, and they may be brought on or triggered by having a cold, changes in the weather, exercise or exposure to cigarette smoke, pollen, mold, animals, and pollution. If you can learn the things that trigger your child's asthma problems, it can help to avoid them, although finding triggers is often difficult.

That plan is supposed to include arrangements for follow-up care and to teach families how they can limit asthma triggers and what they should do during an asthma attack.

Asthma symptoms in children under 5

Common asthma symptoms in children under 5 include: