Management of Asthma Exacerbations in Pediatric Emergency Departments Across the United States

There are 750,000 emergency department (ED) visits by children for asthma exacerbations in the United States annually. Despite changing evidence and epidemiology, there have not been recent assessments of acute asthma prevalence, management, and outcomes from pediatric EDs. This 40-center retrospective evaluation utilizes the Pediatric Hospital Information System to characterize pediatric ED asthma presentations from 2015-2020. Children 2-18 years with asthma ICD-9/10 code and receipt of albuterol were included. Demographics, Child Opportunity Index (COI), ED management, return visits, and adjusted costs were evaluated. Data were summarized using standard descriptive statistics and trends assessed using Mann-Kendall trend test. There were 414,264 encounters made by 256,209 unique patients; 21% had >1 visit in 12 months. Median age was 6 years, 61.6% male, 44.5% Black, and 68.5% publicly insured; 58.3% of visits were by patients with very low/low COI. Systemic corticosteroids were administered in 86.3% of visits; 52.7% used dexamethasone. Chest radiographs were obtained in 23% of encounters. Most (74.9%) encounters resulted in ED discharge with a downward trend of visits for exacerbations per 1,000 ED visits of -9.77, 95% CI [-9.99,-9.54], increase in disposition to intensive care unit of 2.01 [1.87,2.41] and decrease in home/other of -3.77 [-4.34,-3.20]. There was no significant trend in return visits. Total adjusted costs were ∼$900 million. ED visits for asthma remain frequent and disproportionately affect children with lower social determinants of health. Dexamethasone has not been widely adopted as corticosteroid of choice and use of ancillary testing continues, highlighting opportunities for improvement in asthma care.