The data deficit for asthma emergency presentations might surprise you: how RAHDaR addresses the data chasm

Early Abstract:

Objective: National and state-based minimum data sets remain inadequate in providing a complete representation of emergency presentations, especially among paediatric asthma presentations. Thus, the aim of the study is to identify if a deficit exists in current emergency paediatric asthma hospital presentation datasets and how this may inform our understanding of childhood asthma in Victoria
Methods: Retrospective cross sectional study examining emergency hospital presentation data between 1 February 2017 and 31 January 2019. All paediatric (0-14 years of age) emergency asthma presentation data were collected from nine hospitals in South West Victorian, Australia, using the Rural Acute Hospital Data Register (RAHDaR), which gathers both Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD) data from larger government hospitals, and non-VEMD data from smaller, more rural institutions.
Results: Of the 854 emergency presentations identified for children with asthma aged 0-14 years, 540 (63.2%) were managed initially at larger government-reporting hospitals. 314 (36.8%) emergency presentations were initially managed at emergency facilities, such as Urgent Care Centres. Overall, it was found that a total 278 (32.5%) of all emergency presentations do not appear in current government datasets.
Conclusion: The RAHDaR database, a complete register of data, captures all emergency presentations in South West Victoria and highlights as much as a 33% deficit in the data that is currently available to inform asthma resource initiatives including, policy development, funding allocation, prevention and management initiatives in Victoria. More accurate data from sources such as RAHDaR is essential to fill the now evident data chasm.