Conducting Annual Asthma Reviews Using Telehealthcare: Comparison With Standard Care (Face-to-face Consultations)

The National Report of Asthma Deaths published in 2014 highlighted significant deficiencies in both primary and secondary care resulting in one of the highest mortality rates in Europe. A key recommendation in the report is the provision of an annual asthma review in primary care. Telehealthcare is an alternative means of service delivery incorporating the use of telephone and e-mail consultations which may improve access and quality of patient care. There is scant data on the role of teleheathcare in asthma care. This is a single-centre, primary care-based, randomized controlled trial to evaluate the use of telehealthcare to conduct the annual asthma review for adult patients with well-controlled asthma. This will be compared with standard care (face-to-face consultations). Telehealthcare will consist of a telephone consultation followed by an e-mail with an attached personalised asthma action plan and a link to a video demonstrating inhaler technique. Standard care will involve a face-to-face consultation in primary care. The two patient groups will be compared prospectively to determine whether there is a difference in the quality of care evaluated in terms of the patient experience/ satisfaction, health-related quality of life, asthma control and frequency of asthma exacerbations over a 6 month period after the asthma review. The data will be presented in the form of frequency tables, bar charts and pie charts. Non-parametric tests will be applied to determine whether there is a significant difference in the quality of care received.