International journal of medical informatics
-
Asthma is a common pediatric chronic disease and is estimated to account for more than 2million emergency department visits per year. Asthma guidelines have demonstrated improved outcomes, but remain underutilized due to several barriers. Computerized methods to automatically identify asthma exacerbations may be beneficial to initiate guideline recommended treatment, but have not been described. The goal of the study was to examine the accuracy of an algorithm to identify asthma patients at triage in real-time using only electronically available data. ⋯ The simple identification algorithm demonstrated good accuracy for identifying asthma episodes. The algorithm may represent a promising and feasible approach to create computerized reminders or automatic triggers that can facilitate the initiation of guideline-based asthma treatment in the Emergency Department.