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Asthma Information for Health Care Professionals
Due to the complex nature of this disease, clinicians must be armed with the knowledge and skills to correctly diagnose, treat and teach their patients about how to manage their asthma. The six key messages from the 2007 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma can help you identify the most critical parts about caring for your asthma patients.
It is intended to be used with the 2020 Focused Updates to the Asthma Management Guidelines: A Report from The National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Expert Panel Working Group (Clinician's Guide) which includes 19 recommendations in six key areas of asthma diagnosis, management, and treatment.
Primary Care 15-minute Asthma Visit Infographic and resources to help clinicians provide guidelines-based asthma care in a 15-minute visit.
Inhaled Corticosteroids
Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are the most effective medications for long-term management of persistent asthma, and should be utilized by patients and clinicians as recommended in the guidelines for control of asthma. The updated guidelines include three options for taking inhaled steroid controller medicines.
- The first option is to take inhaled steroids every day to control asthma, and to use quick-relief medicine at the first sign of asthma symptoms.
- A second (new) option recommends that people with asthma use inhaled steroids and quick-relief medicines at the same time for asthma symptoms.
- A third (new) option is a treatment option known as SMART (Single Maintenance And Reliever Therapy). SMART uses one inhaler that combines formoterol and an inhaled steroid which acts as both a daily control medicine and a relief medicine.
Check Asthma Severity
At diagnosis, all patients should have an initial severity assessment based on measures of current impairment and future risk in order to determine type and level of initial therapy needed.
Asthma Action Plans
All people who have asthma should receive a written asthma action plan to guide their self-management efforts. Fillable PDF electronic asthma action plans can be embedded into EHRs.
For Chrome, Firefox and Edge you should right click, download and save the Asthma Action Plan PDF to your computer and then open with Adobe Acrobat Reader for full use of the form.
- Download the 0-4 Years Old Asthma Action Plan, Revised March 2019: includes age-appropriate dosing in drop down menus for guidelines-based asthma, GERD and allergy medications, triggers and parent permission to administer meds at school/daycare.
- Download the Student (5 to 18 years old) Asthma Action Plan, Revised March 2019: includes age-appropriate dosing in drop down menus for guidelines-based asthma, GERD and allergy medications, triggers, permission to self-carry/ administer meds at school, and share the AAP
- Download the Adult Asthma Action plan, Revised March 2019: includes age-appropriate dosing in drop down menus for guidelines-based asthma, GERD and allergy medications, triggers
Check Asthma Control
At planned follow-up visits, asthma patients should review level of control with their health care provider based on multiple measures of current impairment and future risk in order to guide clinician decisions to either maintain or adjust therapy.
Follow-up Visits
Patients who have asthma should be scheduled for planned follow-up visits at periodic intervals in order to assess their asthma control and modify treatment if needed.
Environmental Control
Clinicians should review each patient's exposure to allergens and irritants and provide a multipronged strategy to reduce exposure to those allergens and irritants to which a patient is sensitive and exposed, i.e., that make the patient's asthma worse.