Asthma Medication in Hand at Discharge Improves Outcomes

Childhood asthma leads to emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and frequent readmissions. One identified contributor to hospital and ED utilization in this population is unfilled prescriptions from prior admissions.

In an effort to increase “medication-in-hand” discharges, a quality-improvement team in Boston developed a service that delivered all home asthma medications to patients and families in the patient's room prior to discharge from the hospital. This eliminated the need to get the prescriptions filled at another location and reduced the chance of facing insurance barriers to getting the prescriptions filled. The patient, parent, nurse, and pharmacist were together during medication delivery, allowing for additional ed…