Many COPD patients get sub-par hospital care in US

NEW YORK, June 21 (Reuters) Just a third of patients receive ideal care when they're hospitalized for a flare-up of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as emphysema, researchers based in Massachusetts and North Carolina have found.

Ideal care means getting all the tests, treatments and interventions recommended in the treatment guidelines for this condition, and none of those that are not.

Dr. Peter K Lindenauer, from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, and colleagues note in the Annals of Internal Medicine that COPD exacerbation is one of the ten most common reasons for hospital admission among adults in the US and accounts for over 18 billion dollars in annual healthcare costs.

The researchers analyzed data from nearly 70,000 patients hospitalized for a COPD flare-up in the US in 2001, to determine the percentage of patients who received care in accordance with guidelines produced by the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians.

Sixty-six per cent of subjects received all of the recommended interventions, while 45 per cent of subjects received at least one non-recommended intervention. As noted, only 33 per cent of subjects received all of the recommended interventions and none of the non-recommended ones.

Wide variability was seen among the hospitals in the management of COPD patients.

The quality of care for patients hospitalized for acute exacerbations of COPD may be improved by increasing the use recommended therapies, ''decreasing the use of unnecessary and potentially harmful treatments, and reducing variation in practice across hospitals,'' Lindenauer and colleagues conclude.

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