Asthma Clinical Improvement Team Final Report

More than 22 million American adults and children suffer from asthma and the prevalence is increasing. The total cost of asthma in the United States is estimated to be more than $16 billion dollars per year, including health care costs and the costs of lost productivity at work and at home. The cost of asthma in Washington State is estimated to be $400 million annually in medical spending and lost productivity.

About 48,000 adults with asthma in Washington make at least one emergency department visit per year and 100,000 make at least one urgent visit to see their doctors for worsening asthma symptoms each year. Better control of a patient’s asthma has the potential to reduce the need for emergency department visits and lost work days, as well as increasing quality of life.

Report Summary

The Asthma Clinical Improvement Team divided its work into the four critical components of asthma care as described in the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Expert Panel Report-3 2007 (NAEPP EPR-3 2007), whose evidence-based clinical guidelines the team recommended:

• Assessment and monitoring
• Education for a partnership in asthma care
• Environmental triggers and comorbid conditions
• Medications

The team recommended two performance measures for inclusion in future rounds of Alliance public performance reporting:

1. Appropriate use of controller medications

 

The percentage of patients with persistent asthma and who were prescribed medications acceptable as primary therapy for long-term control of asthma during the measurement year.

2. Spirometry use 

The percentage of patients with persistent asthma who have had spirometry within the past year.

In addition to making specific recommendations for Alliance stakeholders within each component of care, the team also made three general recommendations for asthma:

1. The Alliance and its members should support the Washington State Children and Adult Asthma Collaboratives.
2. The Alliance supports an incremental pay-for-performance model that rewards providers for 1) meeting qualification standards for a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) and 2) achieving target levels for designated process or outcome clinical performance measures.
3. Plans and purchasers should 1) be innovative with approaches to encourage healthy behaviors among employees and members and 2) evaluate and communicate the outcomes of any such approaches so that evidence on successful cost-effective benefit designs and incentives can accumulate and be disseminated.

To Order This Report    

Alliance Participants: download this report from the secure Participant-only section of this website

All Others: contact the Alliance and enter "Asthma Clinical Improvement Team Final Report" in the Comments section of the contact us form. A .pdf file of this report will be sent via return email.

Other Clinical Improvement Team Reports

• Depression
• Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Low Back Pain
• Prescription Drugs
• Prevention

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