Use of dispensing histories to improve asthma control

Published this week's edition of the journal, the research highlights the valuable role pharmacists can play in primary health care and chronic disease self-management, said the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA).

The study, Data-mining of Medication Records to Improve Asthma Management, was conducted by the University of Tasmania's School of Pharmacy.

The researchers developed an innovative software application to assist community pharmacists use their medication records to identify people who may have poorly controlled asthma.

The software application identified over 1500 Tasmanian adults as having poorly managed asthma, as evidenced by a high usage of reliever medication. Half these people were encouraged to see their GP for a review of their asthma and the other half used as a control group. Personalised information packs were printed directly from the software application.

"The study highlights an innovative use of existing resources - dispensing histories - and the interventions that were made greatly benefited patients," PSA board member Debbie Rigby said.

"The innovative software application developed by the research team provided the pharmacists with the ability to use their dispensing histories to identify patients who may have been too reliant on reliever medications.

"Pharmacists provided educational resources such as the Asthma Foundation's asthma fact brochure to inform patients who may not have thought their symptoms of asthma required review. The information provided by the pharmacists to patients suggested that they go to their GP to discuss their current asthma management.

"The interventions resulted in fewer patients being reliant solely on reliever medication and encouraged more appropriate use of preventers," she said.

Ms Rigby said the outcomes support the education and outreach approach advocated by the National Asthma Council in its Asthma Management Handbook because optimal asthma control brings many benefits for consumers, not least a reduction in the number of hospitalisations and other adverse events including deaths.

The authors of the study said the intervention should be trialled on a national scale to determine the effects on clinical, social, emotional and economic outcomes, with a longer follow-up to determine sustainability of the improvements noted.