Telecommunication Enhanced Asthma Management

Asthma affects more than 15 million people in the United States. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), the ranking treatment-of-choice, are safe and highly efficacious in controlled trials, but adherence to ICS medications in real-world settings is poor in all patient groups, especially low-income and minority patients who experience the most morbidity from asthma. Children and adults with asthma take less than half of their prescribed ICS medication. One study found that only 44% of ICS prescriptions for children with asthma were filled. Even the most effective medications have little value if not taken as prescribed. Decreasing use of ICS has been repeatedly linked to poor asthma control and increasing health care utilization. We will conduct a randomized, practical clinical trial to test the impact of a communication enhancement program for parents of 3-12 year old children with asthma in the largest health maintenance organization (HMO) within Colorado. Research in this setting has the significant advantage of not only establishing the utility of a behavior-changing strategy, but at the same time demonstrating that the strategy can be applied in a large healthcare system and sustained over time. The proposed intervention will be referred to here as the Telecommunication Enhanced Adherence Management (TEAM) program. This proposal builds upon ongoing efforts within Kaiser Permanente of Colorado (KPCO), the participating HMO, to use automated telecommunication technology to prevent diabetes, reduce cardiac risk, reduce calorie consumption, and increase exercise adherence, with the introduction of an intervention to increase adherence with daily ICS therapy. Speech Recognition (SR), the telecommunication technology used in this trial, has not previously been employed to promote adherence in a population of children treated for asthma within a large HMO. TEAM creates a theory-based enhanced communication program using SR with support from asthma care manager nurses. The Asthma Care Manager program already exists within KPCO, but with SR the frequency and quality of communication with parents is expected to improve significantly, resulting in more ICS medication refills, better persistence in ICS use, and improved asthma outcomes. Through SR calls, parents will be reminded and motivated about the importance of continued daily use of ICS medications, asked about their child's recent asthma symptoms, and given the opportunity to receive a call back from an asthma care manager or to place a request for a medication refill.