PARSIPPANY, N.J., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- A poster abstract presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has demonstrated that the implementation of a specially designed asthma assessment program in the primary care setting can lead to improved diagnosis and treatment for asthma patients.
The study was designed and conducted by the Asthma Care Network (ACN), a program developed to assist healthcare providers in the assessment and management of their patients with asthma through a systematic implementation of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP), the established national guidelines for asthma care.
The ACN program was implemented by Innovex's Health Management Services (HMS) under sponsorship of one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, and employed a team of 100 respiratory care associates (RCAs) who included registered nurses and respiratory therapists formally trained in asthma care.
During the study period, RCAs visited more than 4,900 primary care providers in approximately 2,900 sites, to assist healthcare staff develop systematic approaches to enhanced asthma care for their patients. This approach included the introduction and use of decision support tools to guide appropriate diagnosis and treatment for individual patients, a practice needs assessment, and continuing education and training on asthma management including appropriate device training. Data from more than 60,000 patient visits were collected and analyzed between March 2002 and January 2004.
"This program accomplished two important goals," said HMS' Kathleen Conboy-Ellis, Ph.D., ARNP, AE-C and study lead author. "We identified practices where staff were interested in enhancing the quality of their asthma care, and we facilitated care management by assisting the practice identify patients with poor asthma control."
An evaluation tool surveyed the patients' asthma control and physicians' treatment patterns. Outcome measures included degree of symptom control, limitation of activity, sleep disruption, use of rescue medication and utilization of urgent care services. Data was collected by both patients and their physicians. Study results demonstrated that prior to ACN interventions, 74% of patients reported symptoms consistent with the lack of asthma control. As a result of the ACN program implementation and consistent with NAEPP guidelines, controller medication used to treat asthma increased by over 30%.
About Innovex
Innovex, a unit of Quintiles Transnational Corp., is a leading commercial solutions provider offering sales and marketing services designed to accelerate the success of pharmaceutical, biotech and other healthcare products. Innovex Health Management Services is a service offering that assists healthcare practitioners and their staff improve patient outcomes for disease states by providing information that facilitates diagnosis, improves treatment regimens and enhances patient compliance. For more information, visit http://www.innovex.com/ .
Quintiles helps improve healthcare worldwide by providing a broad range of professional services, information and partnering solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare industries. Headquartered near Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Quintiles has offices in 50 countries and is the world's leading pharmaceutical services organization. For more information visit the company's Web site at http://www.quintiles.com/ .
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