NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — When children with asthma are seen in the emergency room, the doctors there can at least start them on maintenance medication that can help prevent future flare-ups, according to a report in the medical journal Paediatrics.Dr. Heather K. Lehman from the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, New York and colleagues evaluated a paediatric emergency department-based programme designed to create a new role for the ER physician.

Forty children with persistent asthma were provided sample anti-inflammatory medications, and a letter outlining the treatment plan was faxed to the patient’s primary care physician the next day. It was up to the primary care physician to prescribe ongoing anti-inflammatory medication. Twenty-eight of the patients followed up with their primary care physicians, the authors report, and the anti-inflammatory medication was continued in 21 of them.