Clinical audit of COPD patients requiring hospital admissions in Spain: AUDIPOC study.
BACKGROUND
AUDIPOC is a nationwide clinical audit that describes the characteristics, interventions and outcomes of patients admitted to Spanish hospitals because of an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ECOPD), assessing the compliance of these parameters with current international guidelines. The present study describes hospital resources, hospital factors related to case recruitment variability, patients' characteristics, and adherence to guidelines.


RESULTS
An organisational database was completed by all participant hospitals recording resources and organisation. Over an 8-week period 11,564 consecutive ECOPD admissions to 129 Spanish hospitals covering 70% of the Spanish population were prospectively identified. At hospital discharge, 5,178 patients (45% of eligible) were finally included, and thus constituted the audited population. Audited patients were reassessed 90 days after admission for survival and readmission rates. A wide variability was observed in relation to most variables, hospital adherence to guidelines, and readmissions and death. Median inpatient mortality was 5% (across-hospital range 0-35%). Among discharged patients, 37% required readmission (0-62%) and 6.5% died (0-35%). The overall mortality rate was 11.6% (0-50%). Hospital size and complexity and aspects related to hospital COPD awareness were significantly associated with case recruitment. Clinical management most often complied with diagnosis and treatment recommendations but rarely (<50%) addressed guidance on healthy life-styles.


CONCLUSIONS
The AUDIPOC study highlights the large across-hospital variability in resources and organization of hospitals, patient characteristics, process of care, and outcomes. The study also identifies resources and organizational characteristics associated with the admission of COPD cases, as well as aspects of daily clinical care amenable to improvement.
Instituto de Investigación, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid Spain. fpozo@h12o.es
Francisco
F
Pozo-Rodríguez
Jose Luis
JL
López-Campos
Carlos J
CJ
Alvarez-Martínez
Ady
A
Castro-Acosta
Ramón
R
Agüero
Javier
J
Hueto
Jesús
J
Hernández-Hernández
Manuel
M
Barrón
Victor
V
Abraira
Anabel
A
Forte
Juan Miguel
JM
Sanchez Nieto
Encarnación
E
Lopez-Gabaldón
Borja G
BG
Cosío
Alvar
A
Agustí
D001499:Bayes Theorem; D054869:Clinical Audit / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology