NOW UPDATED: Ontario Health has updated the two quality standards (originally
released in 2020) for asthma care with a focus on primary care and care in
community-based settings:
The Asthma in Adults quality standard addresses the diagnosis and management of asthma in adults 16 years of age and older and the Asthma in Children and Adolescents quality
standard
addresses the diagnosis and
management of asthma in children and adolescents under 16 years of age. Both quality standards address
referral to specialized asthma care for people who have indications
characterizing severe asthma, but they do not address the management of severe
asthma in specialized care, acute asthma exacerbations, or care provided during
emergency department visits or hospitalizations.
This update aligns
both quality standards with the most recent clinical evidence and with current
practice in Ontario. You may refer to page 5 of each quality standard for a
summary of updates.
Asthma
is one of the most common chronic conditions in Canada. In Ontario, it is
estimated that nearly 2.5 million people were living with asthma in 2022/23. There
are substantial gaps in the quality of care that people with asthma receive in
primary care and community-based care settings in Ontario. Both quality
standards include six quality statements addressing areas that have high
potential for improving the quality of care for people with asthma in Ontario.
Although there are two
separate quality standards, many of the quality statements and their associated
implementation tools overlap. Below is a sample of tools that may help you put
the quality statements into practice. Many of these tools will help to support
multiple quality statements and are therefore grouped by general themes.
Are there other tools
or resources you use? Do you have experience implementing these tools? If you
have feedback about any of these tools, please use the comments section below
to share!
Education, Training, and Resources for Clinicians
- Asthma Action Plan Course: An online
course developed by MacHealth that provides an overview of asthma action plans
and their use in primary care
- Asthma
action plan templates (fillable) by the Lung Health Foundation for
health care providers to use with patients and their families and care
partners:
- Asthma Action Plan Yellow Zone Formulation Table: A guide for clinicians on how to complete the
“yellow zone” of the asthma action plan from the Lung Health Foundation
- Asthma Best Practices Implementation Toolkit: An
evidence-based, easy-to-use, and accessible collection of tools that support
the delivery of asthma care for children, adolescents, and adults in alignment
with Ontario Health’s
Asthma quality standards, developed by the Lung
Health Foundation in collaboration with a multidisciplinary advisory committee
- Asthma Care Maps for Primary Care:
Guides for
initial
and follow-up
comprehensive assessments of asthma and a bedside spirometry interpretation algorithm from the Lung Health Foundation
- Asthma Diagnosis and Management for Primary Care: An algorithm prepared by the Lung Health Foundation for
the diagnosis and management of asthma in primary care
- Asthma E-Modules: Online
learning modules developed for health care providers by the Lung Health
Foundation on asthma action plans and the diagnosis and management of work-related
asthma
- Canadian Respiratory Guidelines: A library of guidelines for
respiratory issues, including adult and pediatric asthma, from the Canadian
Thoracic Society
- Electronic Asthma Management System (eAMS): An evidence-based, EMR-integrated clinical decision
support system that has been shown to significantly improve the frequency of
asthma control assessment, the quality of asthma prescriptions, and provision
of asthma action plans to adults with asthma in real-world primary care
settings
- Family Physician Airways Group of Canada: A group dedicated to helping family physicians maintain
and increase their skill in treating airway diseases such as asthma
- Mild Asthma Decision Aid and Conversation Aid: Tools developed by the eHealth Knowledge Translation
Research Group at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, designed to
engage patients with mild asthma and their care providers in shared decision-making
when selecting between a low-dose daily inhaled corticosteroid versus as-needed
budesonide formoterol treatment
- Primary Care Asthma and COPD Program (PCAP): An evidence-based
education and management program that has been adopted across 180 primary care
sites in Ontario and is supported by the Lung Health Foundation
- Primary Care Lung Health Quality Improvement (QI) Guide: A guide by the Lung Health
Foundation that facilitates the integration of QI and sparks ideas for lung
health-related QI activities and areas of focus
- Severe and Difficult to Control Asthma Referral Tool: A referral tool for people with
severe and difficult-to-control asthma from the Lung Health Foundation
Education and Support for Patients, Families, and Care Partners
- Ontario Health Patient Guides for the Asthma quality standards
- Asthma & Allergy Helpline: A free helpline from Asthma Canada that patients and caregivers can use to connect with certified respiratory educators regarding asthma and respiratory allergies
- Asthma Best Practices Implementation Toolkit: A list of education and self-management resources compiled by the Lung Health Foundation
- Asthma Canada resources for patients, families, and care partners:
- Asthma Attack Toolkit:
A toolkit outlining the symptoms, management, and prevention of an asthma
attack
- Asthma Control Toolkit:
An educational toolkit with information about asthma control, a checklist of
asthma red and yellow flags, and an asthma action plan
- Breathe Easy Series: A series of booklets that provide information about
asthma management and self-advocacy to adults with asthma and to people caring
for children and adolescents with asthma:
- Asthma Life: An interactive website from the Asthma Research Unit at Queen’s University and Kingston General Hospital where patients and their families can access trusted asthma information, e-learning programs, and self-management tools
- Better Breathe: A patient-facing app to help people manage their asthma
- Canadian Lung Association Resources: A list of asthma self-management resources
- Lung Health Foundation resources for patients, families, and care partners:
- Asthma action plans: Fillable documents to aid in asthma management when it gets out of control
- Lung Health Line: A free information line from the Lung Health Foundation that connects patients and care partners to certified respiratory educators
Resources Specifically for People Caring for Children and
Adolescents
- Asthma Learning Hub: A multilingual resource for
parents and care partners of children with asthma from AboutKidsHealth at the
Hospital for Sick Children
- Asthma Pals Mentorship Program: An 8-week online program
from Asthma Canada that connects peer mentors and children with asthma from all
over Canada in supervised virtual meetings
- Asthma Resources and Support:
A list of resources, websites, and local contacts for children, adolescents, parents,
and care partners from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
- Creating Asthma Friendly Environments:
Recommendations and resources for organizations to develop asthma-friendly and
supportive environments for children and youth from Ophea (the Ontario Physical
and Health Education Association)
Other Resources
- Quality Standards: Other quality standards and
patient guides from Ontario Health may also be useful, including:
- Ocean eReferral Network: An EMR-integrated, cloud-based
technology for health care referrals developed by CognisantMD
- Ontario eConsult Program: Enables doctors to consult with
specialists across the province to get faster access to advice for patient care
- OntarioMD eNotifications: Near real-time
electronic notifications that alert primary care providers via Health Report
Manager (HRM) when their patients are discharged from the emergency department
or are admitted or discharged from in-patient units