Finalist
Optimising Care in Severe Asthma
with support from Patient Connect
Summary of work
Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases yet, despite advances in respiratory medicine, most patients continue to live under the threat of an asthma attack. Patients with severe asthma are at increased risk of asthma attacks and use of oral corticosteroids (OCS) amongst these patients is high. OCS have debilitating long-term adverse effects, negatively impacting quality of life for the patient and increasing healthcare resource utilisation.
To improve asthma control and minimize OCS exposure, care optimisation is essential. As this often requires referral to a specialist centre, identifying patients who would benefit from referral is one of the major challenges in current clinical practice.
Patient Connect has a unique digital reach across the journey of care, connecting with GPs, pharmacists and specialists, at scale. This program leveraged the e-systems used by HCPs every day, to highlight at risk patients and accelerate appropriate referrals. The impact of the program was objectively measurable using system data, charting increase in referral rates and differential prescribing.
During the course of this program, we supported 1.5 million patient engagements along the care pathway. The program reduced exposure to OCS while minimising risk of life-threatening asthma attacks, saving and improving patient lives.
Judges’ comments
The entry from AstraZeneca and Patient Connect impressed the judges with its solid research base and thinking that went across the whole care pathway. It really thought about the systems that supported HPCs and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense. There were clear calls to action, strong analytics and good scale. It showed a dramatic change to behaviour in an area that is clearly not as well managed as it could be.
