Educating health professionals to improve quality of care for asthma.
Recent studies have shown significant progress in improving the quality of care for asthma. The most successful interventions have combined multiple elements: educational sessions that engage learners in discussing cases and practicing new skills; use of new resources, tools and practice patterns to enable quality improvement; and reinforcement of improvements through peer support, incentives or administrative review. Future research should include more randomised controlled trials to test the effectiveness of quality improvement interventions, more detailed descriptions of strategies to change health professional behaviour and studies to determine whether effective interventions can be translated to other settings, disseminated widely and sustained over time.
Evans
David
D
Department of Pediatrics, Room CHS-745, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, 630 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA. de8@columbia.edu
Sheares
Beverley J
BJ
Vazquez
Tara-Lydia
TL
D001249:Asthma / Q000628:therapy*; D019091:Critical Pathways; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011787:Quality of Health Care