Alliance against Asthma Project

Aim To present a model of collaboration between General Practitioner and Community Pharmacists developed in Spain. The Alliance against Asthma Project promotes multidisciplinary work between the primary care physician and the community pharmacist to improve the health of asthmatic patients. This Alliance is formed by the Primary Care Respiratory Society, the Spanish Society of Community Pharmacy and the Spanish Federation of Associations of Allergic Patients and Patients with Respiratory Diseases. This initiative was created to identify asthmatic patients who over-rely on their rescue medication and, therefore, may have their asthma poorly controlled.Brief outline of context: Despite current therapies and advances in asthma management more than 80-90% of asthmatic patients are still poorly controlled or uncontrolled in Spain. How a collaborative model could perform in order to reverse the current state of affairs.Brief description of the change/intervention and why you thought it would work There is a new role of the community pharmacist as a main character to identify patients which asthma is poorly controlled or uncontrolled when they come to the community pharmacy looking for rescue medication with or without prescription. The cornerstone of the project is to refer those patients to the general practitioner.Strategy for change (who, how, following what timetable). The project consists of an online course in asthmatic patient care from the community pharmacy, materials for asthmatic patient health education and a report to refer the patient to the general practitioner (https://alianzacontraelasma.sefac.org). To carry out this communication, the health center or centers adjacent to the community pharmacies that participate in the Asthma Alliance are involved, presenting the project in the clinical session of the health center, bringing together pharmacists and doctors from the area. Effects of changes. Around 1000 community pharmacists are registered in the online course, 1000 general practioners and more than 1000 community pharmacists has attended 128 workshops sessions held in cities all over Spain.Lessons learnt. The community pharmacist is a health professional eager to work with asthmatic patients, raising awareness of SABAs overreliance can help to address ratio 2:1 vs inhaled corticosteroids to 1:6.Message for others. When health professionals work together can get better outcomes for patients. Research Ideas on Respiratory Conditions and Tobacco Dependency Abstract Declaration of Interest AstraZeneca has funded this project. References and Clinical Trial Registry Information