# PA-20-070 Integrating Patient-Reported Outcomes into Routine Primary Care: Monitoring Asthma Between Visits

> **NIH AHRQ R18** · RAND CORPORATION · 2021 · $468,018

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented risk for the 25+ million individuals in the United States
who have asthma. Patients with chronic conditions such as asthma are more likely to have worse clinical
outcomes due the respiratory complications of COVID-19. Furthermore, the risk of COVID-19 related ED visits
and hospitalization is likely higher for patients with more severe asthma, minorities, and those of lower
socioeconomic status. As routine care of chronic disease is declining and maintenance medications are
unfilled, asthma patients are at even greater risk of exacerbations. It is widely established that good asthma
control can help prevent asthma exacerbations and current clinical guidelines recommend frequent monitoring
of asthma control in the ambulatory setting, but useful tools and practice models for symptom monitoring are
unavailable. In prior work, we developed and tested a simple mobile health (mHealth) app that can be installed
on patients' smartphones to track and self-report asthma symptoms using patient-reported outcomes (PRO)
between visits, and a practice model for clinics to monitor the patient-reported symptoms as part of routine
care. Based on the success of our feasibility study, we are currently scaling and spreading this intervention to
primary care clinics that serves a diverse population, including Spanish-speaking and low health literacy
patients. We are rigorously evaluating the effect of our clinically-integrated mHealth intervention in a
randomized controlled trial which is soon to begin. In this supplement to our current project, we will make three
enhancements to maximize health systems' and healthcare professionals' ability to respond to COVID-19.
First, we will enhancement the mHealth app with a COVID-19 symptom screener and relevant educational
materials. Second, we will use quantitative and qualitative methods to identify best practices, barriers, and
facilitators for recruiting patients to our home monitoring intervention during the pandemic. Finally, we will
develop and validate a predictive model to identify asthma patients who may benefit the most from our
intervention, using data available from the electronic health record (EHR). Identifying, recruiting, and safely
monitoring high-risk patients who could potentially utilize acute and critical care resources during the COVID-
19 pandemic are critical aspects of the healthcare system response. Our work will demonstrate how healthcare
systems can use data-driven approaches to identify patients at risk for poor outcomes who would preferentially
benefit from routine and remote monitoring of PROs via a clinically integrated digital interventions. The
knowledge gained from these supplemental aims will provide a clearer understanding of how health systems
might use health IT to keep the patients with chronic conditions, such as asthma, safe by improving
compliance with guidelines. Doing so will not only mitigate the health effects of COVI...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10175400
- **Project number:** 3R18HS026432-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** RAND CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Robert Samuel Rudin
- **Activity code:** R18 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $468,018
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10175400

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10175400, PA-20-070 Integrating Patient-Reported Outcomes into Routine Primary Care: Monitoring Asthma Between Visits (3R18HS026432-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10175400. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*