Objective: To compare health expenditures among elderly Medicaid patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who used either nebulized levalbuterol (levosalbutamol) or racemic albuterol (salbutamol) for bronchodilation. Methods: A retrospective, quasi-experimental study...

Despite an increased understanding of the pathophysiology of asthma and effective therapies, the prevalence, morbidity and mortality of asthma have risen dramatically over the last 2 decades. Asthma disease state management (ADSM) programmes provide managed care with a viable alternative to...

A hand-held interactive electronic lung function device and tele-health monitoring system (AirWatch(TM) Airway Monitoring System, ENACT Health Management Systems, Inc., Mountain View, California, USA) has been developed that measures, records and reports airway status via a remote computer to...

Background: One particularly difficult challenge in evaluating disease management (DM) programs is defining the scope of economic outcomes to include in the evaluation. Measuring `all-cause utilization' or `total costs' assumes that a DM intervention impacts the entire spectrum of services...

The literature contains a number of reports of early work involving telemedicine and chronic disease; however, there are comparatively few studies in asthma. Most of the telemedicine studies in asthma have investigated the use of remote monitoring of patients in the home, e.g. transmitting...

Asthma disease management (DM) programmes often focus on patients who are considered to be high resource users, such as those with recent emergency department visits and/or hospitalisations, or patients who have been diagnosed with severe persistent asthma. These programmes often focus on a few...

The necessity of having reliable measurements of patient care and cost parameters is becoming more recognised in medicine today. This is particularly true for chronic, high cost diseases such as asthma. The goal of this asthma disease management programme was to determine whether the...

Background: Patient satisfaction is regarded as an important indicator in assessing the quality of care. Over the past 20 years, in particular, there has been increasing interest in patients' perceptions about the provision of healthcare. Although asthma is a disease that increases the burden on...

As treatment for moderate to severe persistent asthma, inhaled corticosteroid drugs combined with long-acting beta-adrenoceptor agonists are being marketed in a single inhaler device. These combination products have important benefits (e.g. convenience, improved adherence, and improved...

Despite recent advances in the therapeutic management of asthma, the prevalence, morbidity and mortality of this chronic disease continue to increase in most countries. The financial burden associated with asthma has received increasing scrutiny in the medical literature over the past two...