Resident Children’s National Medical Center Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Background: Single maintenance and reliever therapy (SMART) has demonstrated a reduction in the need for systemic steroids and emergency department utilization for asthma exacerbations when compared to traditional asthma maintenance regimens. Despite the introduction of SMART in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) 2020 Focused Asthma Updates, SMART has not been widely implemented. Clinicians have cited the insurance approval process as barriers. As insurance coverage of SMART-compatible medications has increased, there is a need for provider education to deliver guideline-based care. Objective: We aim to develop a tailored, practice domain specific, educational program to improve provider self-efficacy in implementing the NHLBI 2020 Focused Asthma Updates for hospitalist, emergency medicine, and primary care physicians. Design/Methods: A needs assessment of a convenience sample of providers within each clinical practice domain will inform the content of the educational intervention, emphasizing key components of the 2020 Focused Updates. The program will consist of providers completing asynchronous review of a domain specific electronic module followed by attendance at an interactive, case-based session. We will administer de-identified surveys to assess content knowledge and current practices, changes in practice post-intervention, retention of knowledge and self-efficacy in new guideline implementation. Qualtrics will generate surveys for three time points (pre-educational intervention, immediately post educational intervention, and 2-month follow-up). Development of educational modules and case-based sessions is ongoing and will be completed by 1/2024. Pre-test survey responses will be compared to the initial post-test and the 2-month follow-up survey using the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. We will conduct a subgroup analysis of responses by practice domain. Statistical analyses will be performed in STATA. We obtained IRB exemption for this educational intervention.
