Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health

Background/Objective: Asthma is a common chronic medical condition among children and the most common diagnosis associated with interfacility transports for pediatric patients. As many as 40% of pediatric transfers may be unnecessary, resulting in potential delays in care and unnecessary costs. Our objective was to identify the patient-related factors associated with potentially unnecessary transfers for pediatric patients with asthma.

Methods: We used patient care data from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information patient discharge and emergency department (ED) datasets to capture ED visits where a pediatric patient (age 2–17 years) presented with asthma and was transferred to another ED or acute care hospital. The outcome of interest was a potentially unnecessary transfer, defined as a visit where length of stay after transfer was <24 hours and no advanced services were used, such as respiratory therapy or critical care. Patient-related characteristics were extracted, including age, gender, race/ethnicity, primary language, insurance status, and clinical characteristics. First, we used descriptive statistics to compare necessary vs unnecessary transfers. Second, we used generalized estimating equations accounting for clustering by ED to estimate odds ratios (OR) and identify factors associated with potentially unnecessary transfers.

Results: A total of 4,233 pediatric ED patients were transferred with a diagnosis of asthma, including 461 (11%) transfers that met criteria as potentially unnecessary. Median age was 12 years (interquartile range 7–15), and 46% were female. Factors associated with increased odds of potentially unnecessary transfer while controlling for key factors included younger age (eg, 2–5 years, OR 2.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4–2.9), male gender (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.1–1.7), and Hispanic ethnicity (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.2–2.1), while multiple hospitalizations for asthma per year was associated with decreased odds (OR 0.2, 95% CI 0.1–0.4).

Conclusion: Several patient-related factors were associated with increased or decreased odds of potentially unnecessary transfers among pediatric patients presenting to the ED with asthma. These factors can be considered in future work to better understand, predict, and reduce unnecessary transfers and their negative consequences.