Health Care Resource Utilization (HCRU) in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and Asthma Patients With Moderate-to-Severe Disease

OBJECTIVES: Asthma and COPD are significant public health concerns, with a high prevalence and substantial economic burden. Both conditions significantly impact individuals' quality of life, daily activities, and health outcomes. Their economic burden is substantial, with total (direct and indirect) costs estimated to be billions of dollars each year. In this study we described all-cause and COPD or Asthma related HCRU among patients with uncontrolled disease during index exacerbation and at three months following the index exacerbation.

METHODS: Retrospective cohort study using Optum Clinformatics claims data from 01/01/2016 to 12/31/2023. The study included patients with uncontrolled COPD or Asthma. Uncontrolled disease was defined as having ≥2 moderate exacerbation episodes or ≥1 severe exacerbation episode within a 12-month period. Severe and moderate exacerbation cohorts included patients with ≥1 severe or ≥1 moderate exacerbation episode, respectively after sample entry date.

RESULTS: The COPD cohorts, had 28,197 severe patients and 170,159 moderate patients. The Asthma cohorts had 3,537 and 125,832 severe and moderate patients, respectively. Both COPD cohorts had a higher proportion of patients with all-cause and disease-related inpatient admissions, office visits, ICU stays, number of inpatient days and ER visits than Asthma cohort at index exacerbation.

In the three months following index exacerbation, both COPD cohorts, severe and moderate (1,954 (7.1%), 3,125 (1.8%)respectively) had more patients with ≥1 disease-related IP admission vs Asthma cohorts (54 (1.5%)severe; 222 (0.2%)moderate); more patients with ≥1 disease-related ER visit (10,591 (38.5%), 33,907 (20.0%)) vs Asthma cohorts (494 (14.0%), 5,328 (4.2%)); and more patients with ≥1 ICU stay and number of inpatient days.

CONCLUSIONS: COPD and Asthma are clinically different diseases, including clinical characteristics and demographics of affected patients. The study highlights that patients with uncontrolled COPD had more intensive health-care resource use compared to their Asthma counterparts expressed in terms of hospital admissions, ICU stays, ER visits, and office visits.