A method to the madness in the treatment of asthma

Abstract

B etter asthma management as a result of clinical process improvement was one of the many topics discussed during The Second Annual Disease Management Congress, entitled ‘Outcomes Measurement & Quality Improvement’ [ California, US; February 1998 ]. Dr Sally Wenzel from National Jewish Medical and Research Center, Denver, US, described a case study of management methodologies for patients with severe asthma at National Jewish, and described outcomes information on patient functional status and quality of care delivered. During the same session, Dr Samy Suissa from McGill University, Montréal, Canada, discussed how to use databases to monitor the quality of asthma care delivered to a large population in Canada.