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"We have had asthma guidelines for over 12
years but few tools to figure out how to implement them into practice." |
To offer high-quality care to your patients with asthma and allergies, your practice needs systems in place for treating these chronic conditions. The AAFP is offering resources to help you launch those systems.
AAFP has posted the following tools at http://www.aafp.org/asthmaallergyguide.xml:
These tools are part of the Asthma and Allergy Resources for Family Physicians program, which began in 2000 and is funded by an educational grant from Schering-Plough.
A pair of ongoing practice-based research projects are also part of the program. One seeks to assess the performing of spirometry and evaluate the value of those tests in the primary care setting. The other involves development of patient-oriented tools for assessing asthma control.
Family physicians presented the program and tools as a model for implementing evidence-based knowledge in everyday family practice at the July 12 Translating Research Into Practice conference in Washington. The conference -- co-sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Cancer Institute, and Department of Veterans Affairs -- provided a forum for health care professionals to share experiences and collaborations for moving research into sustained behavior change.
The AAFP resources program began with the yearlong "Learning and Improvement Collaborative on Healthcare for Children with Asthma," co-sponsored by the AAFP and the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality. Thirteen family medicine practices across the United States took part in the effort, which concluded last year.
"This resources program combines state-of-the-art clinical knowledge on these two conditions with proven, practical tools for providing excellent care. Much of the guide is based on what we learned from practicing family physicians in the AAFP collaborative," said Kurt Elward, M.D., of Charlottesville, Va., after the TRIP conference. He is the lead author of the guide and was a presenter at the meeting.
"We have had asthma guidelines for over 12 years but few tools to figure out how to implement them into practice," said FP Barbara Yawn, M.D., a TRIP conference presenter; director of research at Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester, Minn.; and a faculty member for the AAFP program. "Guidelines don't tell you how to care for the individual asthma patient or how to change your practice to make quality care efficient or convenient.
"Caring for people who have asthma without telling them when to increase medications, call for an appointment or come for emergency care -- all elements of an action plan -- is like sending someone home with a new glucose monitoring (system) but not telling them when and how to use it. We just won't do that."
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Copyright © 2004 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.