Clinical guidelines can assist in the management of asthma. Decision support
systems (DSSs) can enhance adherence to clinical guidelines but tend not to
provide clinicians with cues for behavioral change strategies to promote patient
self-management. The Stop Asthma Clinical System (SACS) is a DSS designed for
this purpose. To assess feasibility, seven clinicians used SACS to guide well
visits with 26 predominantly persistent pediatric asthma patients. Data were
collected via survey and in-depth semi-structured interviews. SACS improved
assessment of asthma severity and control, classification of and intervention in
medicine and environmental trigger management problems, and development of an
action plan (all
p
< 0.05). Clinician-patient communication was enhanced. The primary
challenge was that SACS increased clinic visit time. SACS can enhance clinician
behavior to improve patient asthma self-management, but more studies are
indicated to mitigate temporal constraints and evaluate impact on clinician and
patient communication and behavior as well as clinical outcomes.