Ontario Health has released two quality standards for asthma care with a focus on primary care and care in community-based settings:
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 Health Care Providers
- Asthma Action Plan Templates (fillable) by the Lung Health Foundation for health care providers to use with patients and their families and caregivers:
- 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 Care Map for Primary Care—a guide for a comprehensive assessment of asthma from the Lung Health Foundation provide and the spirometry interpretation algorithm provides a bedside approach to interpretation
- 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
- Primary Care Asthma 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 provides a guide to facilitate the integration of QI as well as to spark ideas for lung health-related QI activities and areas of focus
- Provider Education Program (PEP)—a program by the Lung Association (funded by The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) that develops, implements, and evaluates accredited continuing medication education (CME) programs and materials that promote the Canadian Thoracic Society respiratory guidelines
- Slim Jims—a summarized version of the Canadian Thoracic Society’s evidence-based guidelines
- Spirometry Interpretation Guide—a decision tree by the Lung Health Foundation that provides a bedside approach to interpretation
Education and Support for Patients, Families, and Caregivers
- Ontario Health Patient Conversation Guides for Asthma Care in the Community 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
- AsthmaLife—an interactive website where patients and their families can access trusted asthma information, e-learning programs, and self-management tools
- breathe for Asthma—a patient-facing app to help people manage their asthma
- Lung Health Line—a free information line from the Lung Health Foundation that connects patients and caregivers to certified respiratory educators
Resources Specifically for People Caring for Children and Adolescents
- Asthma Learning Hub—a multilingual resource for parents and caregivers of children with asthma from AboutKidsHealth at the Hospital for Sick Children
- Asthma Pals Mentorship Program—an 8-week online program that connects peer mentors and children with asthma from all over Canada in supervised virtual meetups
- Asthma Resources and Support—a list of resources, websites, and local contacts for parents and caregivers, and children and adolescents from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
- Creating Asthma Friendly Schools—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 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 your doctor to consult with specialists across the province to get faster access to advice for your 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
Comment below to describe your experience with these tools or share any others you have found useful!