SBAT Program Clinical Outcomes

Background and Significance of Real-World Clinical Outcomes

School-based programs represent a promising strategy for asthma management because of the ability to optimize children’s care in the setting in which they spend most of their day and to reach children at increased risk for poor outcomes even if they have limited contact with the health care system. By delivering daily preventive medications in school, adherence can be assured on days the child attends school, and because schools (even without full time nurses) already routinely provide daily medications for other conditions such as attention deficit disorder, the provision of daily preventive asthma medications represents a conceptually simple change to improve adherence.

Purpose of the SBAT Program

The School-Based Asthma Therapy (SBAT) program was developed to ensure guideline-based treatment for children with persistent asthma through systematic school-based asthma screening and directly observed administration of asthma controller medications in school. We report the clinical outcomes from a real-world implementation of the SBAT program.

Key Results

Medical record review of 633 children enrolled in the SBAT Program from 2013–2019 who were patients at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH.

Decreases in acute (38%) and urgent care (41%) visits, emergency department (ED) (49%) visits, hospitalizations (50%) and pediatric intensive care unit admissions (71%) from 1-year pre-enrollment to1-year post-enrollment.
37% increase in well-controlled asthma.
All children showed improvement, with especially notable improvements among Black and Latino children.