Currently, an estimated 24 million people in the United States, including 12% of all children, have asthma. Almost 50% of these children experience an asthma attack each year. Shared decision-making (SDM) during the patient–provider visit increases adherence to medication and improves outcomes that are important for patients, such as decreased emergency department (ED) visits. Despite evidence for the effectiveness of new methods such as SDM, multiple barriers prevent clinicians from incorporating them into their practices. And knowledge of effective approaches for successful dissemination of SDM is lacking. In brief, asthma is a serious and prevalent chronic condition for which SDM is known to improve outcomes, but SDM for asthma treatment has not been successfully implemented into primary care settings. We conducted a trial to identify effective ways to disseminate SDM for asthma treatment in primary care.
