Background: Quality control is important for patients with asthma because of its prevalence and because the social burden is substantial. This study analyzed the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) database to assess asthma quality control in South Korea.
Methods: We investigated the HIRA nationwide database for reimbursed insurance claims from all medical institutions in South Korea from July 2013 to June 2014. The number of patients with asthma were evaluated and the medical institutions were categorized by type of medical institution. Asthma care quality was assessed by measuring the performance rate on pulmonary function test (PFT) and investigating prescriptions for asthma medications.
Results: A total of 16,804 medical institutions and 831,613 patients were included in this study. Among them, primary health clinics accounted for 87.75% of all medical institutions and 82.50% of patients were treated in a primary health clinic. The overall PFT performance rate was 23.47%, which was highest in tertiary hospitals (80.59%) and relatively lower in primary health clinics (17.06%). Oral agents were prescribed to 93.96% of patients, whereas inhaled agents were prescribed to only 30.34%. Oral corticosteroids were prescribed to 40.61% of patients, leukotriene antagonists to 48.78%, and inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) to 25.37% of patients by drug category.
Conclusions: Most patients with asthma were treated in primary health clinics rather than higher class medical institutions. Asthma quality control was poor regarding usage of diagnostic measures and prescribed medications.
Keywords: Asthma; Korea; nationwide population-based; primary care; quality control.