Rescue seizure therapy for children with epilepsy

Measure Purpose: Decrease emergency department utilization and decrease episodes of treatment-resistant seizures

The numerator: Patients who receive or have received a prescription for an appropriately dosed rescue seizure therapy in pre-hospital setting

is divided by

The denominator: Patients aged 6 months and older with documented prolonged convulsive* seizure > 5 minutes

*See full specifications for additional details

Exceptions are removed from the denominator for:

• Patient contraindication documented for all rescue medications
• Patient/caregiver refuse
• IV access established
• Undocumented seizure duration recorded
• Documentation that supports patient has self-resolving seizures that last more than 5 minutes

Key Phrases

Key phrases you should use to meet this measure include:

• Prescribed rescue seizure therapy
• Prescribed midazolam
• Prescribed diazepam

Measure Calculation Example

Dr. Barbosa had 60 patients older than 6 months of age with documented prolonged convulsive seizure > 5 minutes from January 1 to December 31 in the measurement year. This is the denominator. Two patients had a contraindication for all rescue medications, four had undocumented seizure duration recorded, and five had documentation that the patient had self-resolving seizures that last more than 5 minutes. These patients are removed from the denominator.

Of the remaining 49 patients, 33 were prescribed an appropriate dosed rescue seizure therapy for the pre-hospital setting.

Quality of care = 33/(60-11). Dr. Barbosa has a score of 67% for this measure.