In the summer of 2011, Governor Kasich announced his plans to pledge $2 million to Ohio’s Children’s Hospitals for two important research projects. This pledge was followed through on March 27, 2012 during a press conference held in Columbus, Ohio where Governor Kasich announced that the state would provide $2 million in funding to two separate research projects, including $1 million for childhood asthma research. On April 9, 2015 Governor Kasich pledged an additional $1 million for a second round of collaborative asthma research. The childhood asthma research project, which took form as the Ohio Pediatric Asthma Repository (OPAR) includes six children’s hospitals in Ohio. The OPAR study so far has enrolled over 2,500 children as well as:
- OPAR is the first statewide repository for inpatient pediatric asthma.
- The data highlights the need for standardization of treatment practices.
- Data collected from OPAR will better define asthma phenotypes, identify practices associated with the best outcomes and inform personalized care plans to reduce reutilization and readmission for asthma.
- OPAR provides unique resources to conduct observational, comparative effectiveness and intervention studies for pediatric asthma.
OPAR analyzes data to identify distinct asthma phenotypes, compare the treatment practices of the different asthma phenotypes at each hospital, and determine how and why these phenotypes differ in their health outcomes. The OPAR study aims to compare and understand effectiveness of strategies currently utilized for the treatment response based on the data infrastructure created.
What is OPAR?
OPAR is a unique and innovative resource that links the 6 Ohio children’s hospitals with the goal of improving the health of children with asthma. To our knowledge, this is the first statewide repository for inpatient pediatric asthma. The long-term objective is to identify the practices and phenotypes associated with the best health outcomes so that best practices can be implemented across these hospitals and similar hospitals across the United States. These data will allow for observational and comparative effectiveness studies, and ultimately testing of novel interventions and new management strategies for hospitalized pediatric asthma. These data demonstrate that there are significant differences in the populations served, ED and inpatient practices, ICU usage, discharge criteria, and LOS among the sites, highlighting the opportunity for understanding care practices linked to best outcomes and implementation of best practices for inpatient asthma care. (Biagini Myers et. al., 2015).
