The eAMS-Pharm stands for the Electronic Asthma Management System. This is a chronic disease management computerized decision support system designed to optimize asthma care according to latest evidence-based guidelines.
It starts with an online patient questionnaire that can be completed by patients on any device (e.g. on their smartphone while awaiting their prescription in the pharmacy). Alternatively, a pharmacy team member can complete a short version of the questionnaire directly with the patient, through the web-based pharmacist eAMS-Pharm portal. This information is instantaneously processed against the latest asthma guidelines, and pharmacists receive recommendations on how to optimize that individual patient's asthma care according to best evidence, within pharmacist eAMS-Pharm portal. Patients are also invited to sign up for a portal, where they can access asthma educational content and can view their personalized asthma action plan, once it is approved by their pharmacist.
The eAMS-Pharm was designed by a team at the University of Toronto, including diverse real-world pharmacists, with the time constraints of the busy community pharmacy in mind. It can be used by any pharmacy team member, though pharmacists (and/or pharmacy students) usually complete the final decision support steps, which often involve medication recommendations.
Patients with asthma must be at least 16 years old to use the system.
Like in many chronic diseases, large gaps between best evidence and actual care have been identified in asthma. The eAMS-Pharm was designed to help bridge the four main evidence-to-practice gaps which are the major causes of poor asthma control, impaired quality of life, and poor outcomes in asthma. These are:
The eAMS-Pharm was developed by clinicians and scientists at the University of Toronto and other centres around Canada, over a more than a decade of research. Each part of the system was systematically designed, built, and tested with user input for workflow integration and user interface optimization. Over 20 peer-reviewed publications support various aspects of the eAMS-Pharm, including a clinical trial in busy, real-world family practices demonstrating significant improvements in quality of care across the main evidence-to-practice gaps in asthma.
It's quick! Once they have used it a few times, pharmacists typically require only 3 to 5 minutes to complete the eAMS-Pharm decision support. This includes identifying asthma control level, optimizing medications accordingly, and generating a personalized asthma action plan for a patient. This compares to over 30 minutes for the same workflows if completed manually (and in most cases, pharmacists do not have the resources or training to complete tasks such as creating a personalized asthma action plan).
For added efficiency, the eAMS-Pharm also automatically creates a comprehensive summary letter and prescription change request to be sent to the patient's prescriber (or a pharmacist prescription and physician summary letter only, if the pharmacist chooses to adjust medications themselves). The system also generates a documentation summary of all interactions that can be used for billing and regulatory purposes.
Using the eAMS-Pharm to objectively measure asthma control level, optimize medications according to guidelines, and create a personalized asthma action plan for the patient meets and exceeds requirements for billable pharmacy services in most provinces, allowing pharmacists not only to make 9 fundamental contributions to their patient's chronic disease care, but also to be remunerated for this effort.
All personal health information is kept private and secure, and is handled in accordance with provincial personal health information protection laws. For a more detailed description of our privacy practices, please see our Privacy Notice.
No, the eAMS-Pharm is completely free to use for patients! Our goal is to improve asthma care without introducing any financial barriers for patients.
The eAMS-Pharm is accessible to the pharmacy team through a standalone web portal and is deployable within almost any pharmacy setting. Please Contact Us for more information about how your pharmacy can be onboarded.
After your pharmacy has launched the eAMS-Pharm, any patient can be invited to simply fill the patient questionnaire through a unique URL provided by the eAMS-Pharm team (this can be accessed through the pharmacy's website, a scannable QR code on eAMS-Pharm posters or cards, or can be directly sent to patients by email or text message through the pharmacy portal). All patients who complete the questionnaire are also automatically invited to create an account in the Patient Portal.
Absolutely. Our client support team will be pleased to provide an eAMS-Pharm demo. Click here to set up an appointment.
You can contact our team for any questions or feedback through our Contact Us form.