• Andrew J Collaro, Anne B Chang, Julie M Marchant, Leanne T Rodwell, Ian B Masters, Mark D Chatfield, and Margaret S McElrea.
• Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Queensland Children's Hospital, QLD, Australia; Centre for Children's Health Research, Queensland University of Technology, QLD, Australia. Electronic address: andrew.collaro@health.qld.gov.au.
• Chest. 2020 Oct 1; 158 (4): 1566-1575.

BackgroundInequitable access to quality health care contributes to the known poorer outcomes of people living in regional/remote areas (compared with urban-based), especially for First Nations people. Integration of specialist outreach services within primary care is one strategy that can reduce the inequity when modeled to the needs and available resources of target communities.Research QuestionTo evaluate whether respiratory outreach clinics in regional and remote Queensland are as effective as tertiary respiratory services at improving the lung function of children.Study Design And MethodsFrom existing databases, we obtained spirometry data of children (aged 3-18 years) seen at Indigenous-focused outreach clinics in regional and remote Queensland and Brisbane-based pediatric tertiary hospitals over the same contemporary period (October 2010 to July 2019). We compared the change in spirometry z scores (Δz) at follow-up for both groups of children.ResultsLung function significantly improved in both groups: Tertiary hospital (n = 2,249; ΔzFEV1 = 0.22, 95% CI, 0.17 to 0.27; ΔzFVC = 0.23, 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.28); outreach (n = 252; ΔzFEV1 = 0.35, 95% CI, 0.22 to 0.48; ΔzFVC = 0.36, 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.50). No significant intergroup differences were found in ΔzFEV1 (0.13; 95%CI, -0.02 to 0.28; P = .10) or ΔzFVC (0.14; 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.29; P = .08) improvement from baseline. In both groups, the proportion of children with zFEV1 > 0 at follow-up (hospital = 31.7%; outreach = 46.8%) significantly increased (hospital P = .001; outreach P = .009) from baseline (hospital = 27.2%; outreach = 35.3%). Numbers of children with zFEV1 > 0 significantly increased for asthma and bronchiectasis outreach subgroups, and for children with asthma in the hospital-based group.InterpretationComparable significant lung function improvement of children was seen in Indigenous-focused outreach remote/regional clinics and paediatric tertiary hospitals. This suggests that effective clinical care is achievable within the outreach setting.Copyright © 2020 American College of Chest Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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