The Electronic Asthma Management System (eAMS) is a disease management and clinical decision support system (CDSS) tool developed by EAPOC (Evidence at the Point-of-Care). It aims to empower community healthcare providers, including physicians and pharmacists, to improve symptom control, quality of life, and health outcomes for patients with asthma. The eAMS is comprised of three parts:
Research shows that the eAMS significantly improves the quality of asthma care, bridging important gaps between real-word care and guideline-recommended best care. As well, it increases patient autonomy in disease control while avoiding unnecessary physician and hospital visits.
The eAMS is also a recognized implementation resource for the latest Health Quality Ontario (HQO) Asthma Quality Standards.
Nearly 3.5 million people across Canada suffer from asthma, and a majority do not have good control of their asthma. The concept for this tool first emerged in 2008. Recognizing the challenges and gaps in the quality of asthma care, we designed the eAMS to improve care delivery, with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes for patients with asthma.
Our team lead is Dr. Samir Gupta, a respirologist, clinician-scientist, and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Gupta was awarded Asthma Canada's 2019 Lead Investigator Award in Health Research and the 2023 University of Toronto Department of Medicine Award in Quality and Innovation for his groundbreaking work in knowledge translation and the use of the Electronic Asthma Management System to help close gaps in asthma care.
Dr. Gupta and the team identified four major care gaps that asthma care providers face at the point-of-care: determining if the patient has good control of their asthma, making sure that the patient is on the best medicines recommended by guidelines, providing each patient with a self-management asthma action plan (AAP), and identifying patients with severe asthma who require specialist care, as guidelines recommend.
Having studied the barriers to these practices in real-world care and working closely with primary care physicians and pharmacists to find solutions, the team developed a computerized clinical decision support system dedicated to asthma. Over the years, the technology was built with the help of patients, pharmacists, primary care and specialty physicians, asthma educators, and researchers, with an overarching goal of making it easier for providers to deliver guideline-based asthma care.
With over 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications produced, extensive research has gone into the development and testing of the eAMS in order to bring it to practice. Studies have demonstrated that the eAMS can be successfully utilized in real-world settings to improve quality of care with minimal impact on pre-existing workflows.
The eAMS has had many partners and funders along the way, including: Asthma Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Thoracic Society, the Family Physician Airways Group of Canada, the Lung Health Foundation, and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
