Prescribe a Helpful Resource to Your Pediatric Asthma Patients and Their Parents
Asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in children and adults with a prevalence of over 8% in U.S. children and 7% in adults. This translates to over 7 million children in the U.S. have asthma and over 26 million total. In 2007, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) released their Expert Panel Report-3 for the management of asthma. These guidelines are still in effect with minor updates over the years. More recent guidelines are available from the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). Both guidelines have similar recommendations including the use of asthma action plans for example, though the GINA guidelines are more up to date with the current best evidence.
Both guidelines recommend the use of asthma action plans and include sample versions. Similarly, both recommend providers ensure proper inhaler use. Up to 30% of emergency room visits are due to improper inhaler use. The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has recently released an app to educate parents and children on these critical asthma topics. Their new app called CHANGE Asthma includes links to YouTube videos describing the proper inhaler use, as well as educational games utilizing virtual reality. The games emphasize how to use an inhaler, identifying the severity of an asthma attack, and need for a rescue inhaler.
Evidence-based medicine
The app includes resources from reputable organization/hospital–Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The resources included in the app are only in English and cover evidence-based topics, including proper inhaler use, asthma action plans, and recognition of asthma symptoms/rescue inhaler use. There are no links to national guidelines such as GINA or NHLBI.
What providers would benefit from this App?
Students, residents, mid-levels, family medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, pulmonary. Any provider who prescribes or manages patients with pediatric asthma.
Price
o Free.
Likes
o High-quality patient education materials from reputable sources
o Videos well-made with helpful materials
o Virtual reality game on phone works well
o Available for Android
Dislikes
o Interface for asthma action plan is buggy
o Font is far too small for the screen
o Videos not downloaded to device and must link out to YouTube
Overall
CHANGE Asthma is a very useful new app for parents and children/adolescents with asthma. The app teaches the basics of the asthma action plan, how to correctly use inhalers, and a games to teach recognition of asthma symptoms and need for rescue inhaler use. The app is free and would be a no-brainer to prescribe except for some bugs in the interface. Ideally, these will be addressed quickly making this a go-to app for parents of children with asthma. The resources in the app may very well keep pediatric asthma patients out of the ER and hospital.
Overall Score
o 4.0 stars
User Interface
o 3.5 stars
Interface appears easy to use, but small font and some bugs make it challenging.
Multimedia Usage
o 4.0 stars
App links to helpful videos on inhaler use on YouTube; videos not downloaded to device.
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Price
o 5 stars
A great resource for free.
Real World Applicability
o 4.5 stars
This is most definitely an app that could be prescribed to parents/patients with pediatric asthma. My only hesitation currently is the problematic interface and difficult to use Asthma Action Plan section of the app.
Device Used For Review
o iPhone 8 running iOS 12.2
Available for Download for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
