The Breathe Well Program for Adults With Asthma

Breathe Well uses the Kaiser Permanente Electronic Health Record (EHR) to identify asthma exacerbation risk factors. For patients with a history of frequent exacerbations or B-agonist overuse, the EHR notifies a nurse who uses an EHR-generated tailored clinical report and patient directed decision support tool to engage and empower patients to develop an action plan in collaboration with providers. EHR-templated notes and order sets facilitate care plan execution. Poor controller medication adherence or unaddressed smoking results in the patient being automatically enrolled in an IBCT medication refill or smoking cessation program. Breathe Well uses multiple EHR functions and a patient and provider team to address barriers to evidence-based asthma care for providers.The study will be conducted in 26 primary care clinics of Kaiser Permanente Colorado (KPCO) using a pragmatic clinical trial design. Up to 15,000 high-risk asthma patients will be assigned to Breathe Well or guideline-based usual care based on their clinic.

Inclusion criteria

Adults with ≥1 EHR of these indicators of an asthma care gap in the EHR will be eligible.

• B-agonist overfilling
• inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) underfilling
• current smoker
• asthma exacerbation in the last year

Exclusion criteria

• limited life expectancy
• diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• lack of a pharmacy benefit because medication use cannot be captured.