2000 OPEN FORUM Abstracts
LEVALBUTEROL & ALBUTEROL SULFATE: A COMPARISON STUDY
Marcia Roberts Graves CRTT, RCP, BS Harris Methodist Southwest, Fort Worth, Texas
Background: Patients with severe onset of respiratory illness often go to the Emergency Department, (ED) for immediate medical attention. This study evaluated a comparison in the clinical outcomes of aerosolized Levalbuterol and Albuterol Sulfate on that population of patients.
Methods: Data was collected on 456 patients during a 3-month study. All adult patients presenting with onset of severe onset of respiratory illness were included in this study. Patients received aerosolized medication with the Airlife sidestream high-efficiency nebulizer. It was decided to target 2 specific outcomes: 1) Number of hospital admissions for patients receiving each medication 2) Number and frequency of treatments for patients receiving each medication.
Results:
| # Receiving Levalbuterol 1.25 mg 5 ml | # Receiving Albuterol Sulfate | |
| ED patients treated | 299 | 157 |
| Avg. # of treatments in ED | 3 | 5 |
| Avg. LOS in ED | 1.75 hrs. | 2.8 hrs. |
| Hospital admissions | 29 (10%) | 98 (60%) |
| Avg. # of treatments in Hospital | 7 | 16 |
| Avg. LOS in Hospital | 2.25 days | 3.2 days |
Conclusion: In this study, patients treated with Levalbuterol demonstrated significant decrease in total treatment times in both the ED and hospital, hospital admits, and LOS for both the ED and hospital as compared to Albuterol Sulfate. Levalbuterol nebulization appears to make a vast impact on both clinical and financial outcomes.