Development of a Clinical Decision Support Tool to Implement Asthma Management Guidelines in Pediatric Primary Care: Qualitative Study

Background                     There is a longstanding gap between national asthma guidelines and their implementation in primary care. Primary care providers (PCPs) endorse numerous provider and practice or clinic-related barriers to providing guidelines-based asthma care. To reduce asthma morbidity in primary care, PCPs need access to tools that facilitate adherence to national guidelines, which can be delivered at the point of care, are minimally burdensome, and fit within the clinic workflow. Clinical decision support (CDS) tools are health IT systems that can be housed in the electronic health record (EHR) system.                                                           Objective                     This study aimed to follow user-centered design principles and describe the formative qualitative work with target stakeholders (ie, PCPs and IT professionals) to inform our design of an EHR-embedded CDS tool that adheres to recent, significant changes in asthma management guidelines.                                                           Methods                     Purposive sampling was used to recruit three separate subgroups of professionals (n=15) between (1) PCPs with previous experience using a paper-based CDS tool for asthma management, (2) PCPs without previous experience using CDS tools for asthma management, and (3) health care IT professionals. The PCP interview guide focused on their practice, familiarity with national asthma guidelines, and how a CDS tool embedded in the EHR might help them provide guideline-based care. The health care IT professional guide included questions on the design and implementation processes of CDS tools into the EHR. Qualitative data were audio-recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed using an inductive approach to develop themes.                                                           Results                     Themes were organized into 2 domains, current practice and CDS tool development. The themes that emerged from PCPs included descriptions of assessments conducted to make an asthma diagnosis, previous attempts or opportunities to implement updated national asthma guidelines, and how a CDS tool could be implemented using the EHR and fit into the current asthma management workflow. The themes that emerged from health care IT professionals included processes used to design CDS tools and strategies to collect evidence that indicated a tool’s value to a practice and the broader health system.                                                           Conclusions                     In this study, user-centered design principles were used to guide a qualitative study on perceived barriers and facilitators to a primary care–based, EHR-integrated asthma CDS tool. PCPs expressed their interest in adopting an asthma CDS tool that was low burden and efficient but could help them adhere to national asthma guidelines and improve clinic workflow. Similarly, health care IT professionals perceived an asthma CDS tool to be useful, if it adhered to EHR design standards. Implementation of a CDS tool to improve adherence of PCPs to recently updated national asthma guidelines could be beneficial in reducing pediatric asthma morbidity.