Redesigning Ambulatory Care Delivery to Enhance Asthma Control in Children

The investigators have developed a tool to facilitate asthma self-management in children, the electronic-AsthmaTracker (e-AT). The e-AT changes ambulatory asthma care delivery to a new model that is continuous and proactive, focusing on prevention and control, rather than reactive and focusing on management of asthma attacks. The e-AT 1) engages parents in weekly monitoring of their child's chronic asthma symptoms, 2) guides parents to recognize warning signs of asthma attacks in order to prompt appropriate interventions and timely visits to Primary Care Providers, and 3) provides Primary Care Providers with real-time, objective patient data to assess the effectiveness of asthma therapy and prompt adjustments. In a preliminary study of the paper-based version of the AT, frequent users had significantly fewer emergency department (ED) and hospital visits. Parent comments during the e-AT pilot testing revealed that the tool was useful in helping them manage their child's asthma and were interested in assessing the tool's effectiveness and in identifying and addressing barriers to their sustained use of the e-AT. Improving asthma control in children will be facilitated by broad e-AT dissemination, and by identifying and addressing critical factors that contribute to parent sustained participation in self-management. The investigators propose to assess the effectiveness of the new ambulatory care model supported by the e-AT and conduct an e-AT process evaluation, assessing barriers and facilitators of sustained parent use. The investigators will engage parents throughout this study to identify and address themes that matter to them. The target population is children with persistent asthma, ages 2-17 years. The investigators have engaged 10 parents since conception of this project, from the planning to design and validation of the paper-AT, and the design and pilot testing of the e-AT. Input from parents was received through 3 iterative focus groups (one for the paper-AT and 2 for the e-AT) and facilitated discussions to inform the development of this proposal including research objectives and outcome measures. In addition, the investigators have recruited other key stakeholders for whom the results of the research will be relevant.