Launch of Asthma Care audit tool

PRIMIS launches a free-to-use Asthma Care audit tool

PRIMIS' newest audit tool - Asthma Care - will enable practices to audit their clinical data to optimise the management and care of patients with active asthma. This will also help practices potentially reduce the risk of exacerbation and hospital admission amongst these patients. 

The tool also assists with case finding, encouraging practices to establish a more accurate prevalence rate and identify patients who may have the disease but do not have a diagnosis recorded.

This audit tool has the potential to reduce the associated costs of asthma care caused by poor control and improve quality of life for patients through the reduction of everyday symptoms.

Benefits of the Asthma Care audit tool

The asthma care audit tool helps practices by:

• generating a list of patients who may have asthma but do not have a recorded diagnosis and providing relevant information to help clinicians to confirm or exclude diagnosis 
• facilitating clinical audit against national standards for all asthmatic patients prescribed asthma medication within the last 12 months
• summarising practice achievement of the Royal College of Physicians ‘3 questions’ outcome measure which assess asthma patient wellbeing
• using patients’ medication history to summarise treatment strategies based upon the British Thoracic Society/Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (BTS/SIGN) stepwise approach 
• highlighting patients whose current treatment step may require review 
• reporting on key factors that are associated with an increased risk of exacerbation 
• helping practices to implement key recommendations made by the National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) Confidential Enquiry report
• providing the facility to compare data with other practices both locally and nationally and the option to share aggregated data with their CCG via the CHART Online tool
• contributing to the delivery of the Quality and Outcomes Framework, the NICE quality standards for asthma (QS25), the NHS Outcomes Framework (NHS OF), the Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set and the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF).

Information on the Asthma Care audit tool

For EMIS LV users

Please note that this first version of the Asthma Care audit tool version is not compatible with EMIS LV. This will be rectified as soon as possible (within the next two weeks). Information on the release will be posted on this website and via our @PRIMISatUoN Twitter feed.

For TPP SystmOne users

It is currently not possible to extract prescription information regarding the number of inhalers used but PRIMIS is working in conjunction with TPP to resolve this issue. This does not affect the Asthma Care dashboard view, but will mean some columns in the CHART datasheet remain unpopulated. Information on any resolution to this issue will be posted on this website and via our @PRIMISatUoN Twitter feed.

For all users  

Please read more on our dedicated Asthma Care audit tool page, which includes the useful Quick Guide and the instructional guide (both pdf documents), instructions on how to obtain the audit tool and a little more detail on the tool itself.

The development of the Asthma Care audit tool has been funded by Boehringer Ingelheim. Boehringer Ingelheim has undertaken a medico legal review but PRIMIS has retained editorial control and intellectual property rights for this audit tool.

Availability

The Asthma Care audit tool is free to use for any practice that is a member of the PRIMIS Hub membership scheme, including free basic membership.

Not an existing Hub member?

Please sign up for Hub membership

Existing Hub members

You can immediately obtain the Asthma Care audit tool by clicking on the 'Check for Updates' link within CHART.