No abstract

Although greater adherence was associated with lower rates of ED visits, higher medication expenditures outweighed the savings. The overall low adherence rates suggest that quality improvement initiatives should continue to target adherence regardless of the class of medication used. However, low baseline hospitalization rates may leave little opportunity to significantly decrease costs through better disease management, without also decreasing medication costs.

Our results suggest that the ED may be an important site to deploy universal literacy-sensitive precautions and to test literacy-sensitive interventions with the goal of reducing the burden of potentially preventable ED visits on patients and the healthcare system.

Broad stakeholder engagement, rigorous measure development and testing processes, and regular opportunities for public input contributed to the development and validation of the first set of fully specified and tested pediatric oral healthcare quality measures, which have high feasibility for implementation in both public and private sectors. This achievement marks an important essential step toward improving oral healthcare and oral health outcomes for children.