Clinical trial NCT03000491: Learning Health System for Asthma
Official title: Developing a National Learning Health System for Asthma to Reduce the Risk of Asthma Attacks and the Risk of Asthma Hospitalisations and Deaths
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Asthma
Lead sponsor: University of Edinburgh
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: NHS Lothian
First posted: 2016-12-22
Enrollment: 750000
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: OTHER
Time perspective: RETROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Patients (with and without asthma) in Scotland registered with primary care practices from 2010-2015.

Brief summary: This study forms an initial phase of work aimed at developing a learning health system (LHS), whereby data relating to asthma is extracted from patient electronic health records (EHRs) across Scotland, analysed to explore variations in clinical practice and then shared with general practices to highlight any improvements that can be made so that they can better support people with asthma.

If successful, the investigators hope to progress to the main quality improvement phase involving an increased number of practices and then incrementally build this up to cover the whole of Scotland.

Detailed description: The UK has amongst the highest rates of asthma in the world as well as some of the poorest health outcomes from asthma.

Investigations into asthma deaths in the UK have found that the way patients were managed in the time leading up to their death could be improved significantly and half of asthma deaths are potentially avoidable. For most people with asthma, symptoms can come and go and sometimes be erratic. To prevent these symptoms, there is a window of opportunity to intervene with the appropriate care. This window occurs between when someone experiences early symptoms like night cough or wheeze and when they experience a full-blown asthma attack.

Most people with asthma receive care primarily in their general practice. General practices have a history of using health information technology to care for their patients. The use of this technology over time has resulted in the creation of rich electronic healthcare data. Through this rich data there are opportunities to create a system whereby clinical management can be benchmarked and improvements highlighted.

This study forms an initial phase of work aimed at developing a learning health system (LHS), whereby data relating to asthma is extracted from patient electronic health records (EHRs) across Scotland, analysed to explore variations in clinical practice and then shared with general practices to highlight any improvements that can be made so that they can better support people with asthma.

If successful, the investigators hope to progress to the main quality improvement phase involving an increased number of practices and then incrementally build this up to cover the whole of Scotland.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients registered with general practices across Scotland.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients from general practices that do not to opt-in to the study.
* Patients with a READ code recording dissent from use of their records for research purposes.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Variations in clinical practice as assessed by data relating to asthma extracted from patient electronic health records.
timeFrame: At study completion (3 months)
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Edinburgh
country: United Kingdom
facility: University ot Edinburgh
Study officials:
References: