Relievers are medications that relax the bands of muscle surrounding the airways and are used to quickly alleviate bronchoconstriction and prevent exercise-induced bronchospasm.

• For the purposes of the CAC measures, inpatient hospitalization includes the time of arrival to the emergency department (ED) or observation area until discharge from the inpatient setting.
• For reliever medication(s) administered in the Emergency Department /observation area which was given prior to the inpatient admission, select “Yes.”
• “Reliever Not Specified (NOS)” can be used to answer “Yes” to this question in the following situations:
  • For new relievers that are not yet listed in Table 6.2
  • When there is documentation that a reliever was administered but unable to identify the name. It must be apparent that the medication is a reliever.
    Example:
    -On 2-12-08, the ED record contains the documentation, “Reliever started name illegible, 2.5 ml, PO, 0200-JM”. In the reliever grid, “Reliever NOS” would be entered for the name, PO for the route, 0200 for the time and 2-12-08 for the date. (If “Reliever started” had not been documented in this example, the medication could not be abstracted as Relievers Administered.

• Emergency department record
• Nursing notes
• Nursing flow sheet
• Medication administration record (MAR)