Asthma Awareness Month: Turning Insights into Impact with DRVS

Each year, we recognize May as Asthma Awareness Month – a time to educate, advocate, and act in support of the 26.8 million adults and 4.5 million children in the United States with a diagnosis of asthma. While it’s often seen as a manageable condition, asthma is a serious chronic lung disease and causes inflamed airways during episodes, leading to millions of hospitalizations and healthcare costs annually.

When treating and managing asthma symptoms, it is crucial to identify and understand which patients are most vulnerable. In recognition of Asthma Awareness Month, we’re highlighting key ways to drill deeper into the details of patients with an asthma diagnosis within DRVS, empowering practices to develop more proactive strategies for delivering the care these patients need.

Asthma & Comorbidities in DRVS

Comorbidities of asthma can complicate the diagnosis and management of asthma, causing diagnostic confusion due to the comorbidity mimicking asthma symptoms, the exacerbation of these symptoms, and treatment of these comorbidities often impacting asthma treatment or symptoms. According to Medical News Today, some common asthma comorbidities include allergic conditions, anxiety, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

At the point of care, care teams can filter the Patient Visit Planning Report (PVP) within DRVS to proactively scan upcoming appointments for patients who have diagnosis of asthma. What other diagnoses are present, if any? How might those other diagnoses impact the patient’s asthma, and vice versa?

Providers and their teams can also review the Care Management Passport (CMP) for lists of allergies and active medications for patients with a diagnosis of asthma. The care team can quickly reference this information in the CMP, eliminating the need to spend time manually reviewing charts to find the same details. Do any of the patient’s allergies or medications prescribed for other conditions potentially worsen their asthma symptoms?

Within DRVS’s stock Asthma Registry, users can easily explore their patient population with an asthma diagnosis. By applying additional filters for other diagnoses, they can quickly identify patients with comorbid conditions – enabling a more targeted and informed approach to care. This registry can be copied and modified to include additional registry data elements alongside additional information about patients with an asthma diagnosis. Users can even update the inclusion criteria on their copy of this registry to include additional diagnoses. For example, maybe a practice wants to see \all patients coming in for a visit next week with a diagnosis of asthma and anxiety, ASCVD, or obesity.

Asthma & Risk in Azara DRVS

For practices with the DRVS Risk Stratification add-on module, users can layer a Patient Risk filter onto the PVP to identify high-risk patients with a diagnosis of asthma scheduled for a visit. What comorbidities do these patients have in conjunction with their asthma diagnosis? How much of their overall risk score does their asthma diagnosis contribute to? Identifying patients with asthma who also have comorbid conditions and are at higher risk presents an opportunity for targeted care management, allowing practices to proactively address complex needs and improve health outcomes.

Asthma & Non-Medical Conditions of Health in DRVS:

In addition to identifying and exploring the comorbidities of asthma within DRVS, users can also explore the non-medical conditions of health that often exacerbate asthma symptoms.

Asthma doesn’t impact everyone equally. Some racial and ethnic minority populations are disproportionately affected by asthma, and scientific literature suggests non-medical conditions of health play an important role in this disparity. This is especially apparent in Black, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Mexican American populations – all of whom experience higher rates of ER visits, hospitalizations, and asthma-related complications.

Poor housing quality is common in lower income neighborhoods which could increase exposure to mold, pests, and indoor air pollution – all of which trigger or worsen asthma.

Income and education both play important roles too. Families with lower income face higher asthma prevalence, exacerbations, hospitalizations, and intensive care unit admission. Children with caregivers who have limited health literacy may struggle to follow their asthma action plan, forego necessary treatment from an asthma specialist, miss more days of school, need more asthma medications, or end up in the ER more frequently than children with a caregiver who has sufficient health literacy.

Similar to the example in the above section where users can scan the PVP in DRVS for comorbidities of asthma, users can also scan the PVP for non-medical conditions of health (such as race, housing, income, and education.)

Care teams can hone in on patients coming in for a visit who have both a diagnosis of asthma and an education trigger. This helps to identify patients who may have lower health literacy and likely need more support in managing their asthma.

Thinking back to the stock Asthma Registry referenced earlier, users can also apply a filter for a particular non-medical condition of health. This will help to identify patients coming in for a visit who have identified a particular social need, such as medical transportation and may have a more difficult time making it to their visit.

Just Breathe!

We have covered a lot of ground in how to utilize DRVS tools to explore patient populations with a diagnosis of asthma. For more information and guidance on how to utilize the tools outlined above, check out the DRVS Help Section, specifically our User Guides. Together, we can turn data into action – helping each patient breathe a little bit easier, this month and well into the future.