Description

This episode of the Boston Children’s Hospital Clinical Pathways Podcast reviews the Emergent and Urgent Asthma pathway, focused on improving consistency and quality of care for children presenting with asthma exacerbations. The discussion highlights the importance of early severity assessment, prompt administration of systemic steroids, efficient use of bronchodilators and adjunctive therapies, and avoidance of unnecessary testing. Emphasis is placed on interprofessional collaboration and aligning emergency care with inpatient and outpatient asthma management guidelines to improve patient outcomes.

Clinical Pathways are educational reference tools developed by Boston Children’s Hospital clinicians which focus on the diagnosis and management of a wide variety of clinical conditions based on up-to-date evidence and expert practice. On this show, host Miya Bernson-Leung, MD, EdM, Medical Director of Continuing Education and a member of the Clinical Pathways Advisory Committee, interviews clinical experts to take you behind each pathway, discussing why the pathway was developed and key takeaways for clinicians seeking to implement the pathway and provide safe, effective, evidence-based care to children. You can find the full library at https://clinical.pathways.childrenshospital.org/.

Any treatment and/or medication recommendations within the pathway is provided for educational reference only, it is not intended as medical advice for individual patient care. Decisions about evaluation, diagnosis, and/or treatment are the responsibility of the patient’s treating clinician and should always be tailored to the individual patient’s clinical care needs.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this educational program, learners will be able to:

1. Apply a standardized, severity-based approach to the management of pediatric asthma exacerbations in emergent and urgent care settings, including assessment using a validated clinical severity score. 
2. Recognize key evidence-based interventions that reduce variability in acute asthma care, such as timely systemic corticosteroid administration, appropriate use of adjunctive therapies, and judicious diagnostic testing. 

In support of improving patient care, Boston Children’s Hospital is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Physician

Boston Children’s Hospital designates this live activity for a maximum of 0.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits ™. Physicians should claim only credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in this activity.

Physician Assistant

Boston Children’s Hospital has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category 1 CME credits for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for 0.5 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Nurse

Boston Children’s Hospital designates this activity for 0.5 contact hours for nurses. Nurses should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. 

Pharmacy

This activity carries a maximum of 0.5 contact hours. Pharmacists should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Policy 

Boston Children’s Hospital adheres to all ACCME Essential Areas, Standards, and Policies. It is Boston Children’s policy that those who have influenced the content of a CE activity (e.g. planners, faculty, authors, reviewers and others) disclose all relevant financial relationships with commercial entities so that Boston Children’s may identify and resolve any conflicts of interest prior to the activity. These disclosures will be provided in the activity materials along with disclosure of any commercial support received for the activity. Additionally, faculty members have been instructed to disclose any limitations of data and unlabeled or investigational uses of products during their presentations.

Disclosure Statement

The following planners, speakers, and content reviewers, on behalf of themselves, have reported the following relevant financial relationships with any entity producing, marketing, reselling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on patients: