Pediatric Patients of Outreach Specialist Queensland Clinics Have Lung Function Improvement Comparable to That of Tertiary Pediatric Patients.

BACKGROUND

Inequitable 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 QUESTION

To 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 METHODS

From 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.

RESULTS

Lung function significantly improved in both groups: Tertiary hospital (n = 2,249; ΔzFEV = 0.22, 95% CI, 0.17 to 0.27; ΔzFVC = 0.23, 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.28); outreach (n = 252; ΔzFEV = 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 ΔzFEV (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 zFEV > 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 zFEV > 0 significantly increased for asthma and bronchiectasis outreach subgroups, and for children with asthma in the hospital-based group.

INTERPRETATION

Comparable 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.