A Pilot and Feasibility Study of Mobile-Based Asthma Action Plans

A written Asthma Action Plan from a healthcare provider is one of the key features of asthma self-management recommended by the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program asthma guidelines; guidelines-based asthma care has not yet fully translated to the community despite the fact that National Asthma Education and Prevention Program released the first set of national guidelines nearly 2 decades ago. Previous reports have proven that patients with an Asthma Action Plan have better outcomes including fewer acute healthcare utilization visits, fewer days missed from school, and improved symptoms scores compared to patients without an Asthma Action Plan. Recently, mobile-based phone applications and music file (MPEG layer 3)(MP3) players have been utilized in the management of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes to provide medication reminders and to provide alternatives to paper dairies for logging symptoms or other health-related data such as peak flow readings or blood glucose readings. We propose to design an application that will fully meet the recommended individualized Asthma Action Plan treatment plan as recommended by national guidelines and will also provide participants with medication reminders, education tips, and data logging/tracking capabilities.