New York State Primary Care Asthma Preceptorship
The New York State (NYS) Primary Care Asthma Preceptorship (PCAP) is designed to provide primary care providers (PCPs) with an immersive, one-on-one, experiential training on treating patients with asthma.
What is the NYS PCAP?
- NYS PCAP pairs a PCP with an experienced asthma specialist for a combination of conversational learning and patient visit observation, focusing on four main objectives.
- 1: Explain how to accurately diagnose asthma, including identification of asthma signs and symptoms, appropriate testing, and differences based on age group.
- 2: Identify national asthma guidelines and recommendations for asthma management and understand how to apply accordingly to patient care.
- 3: Understand how spirometry is used to support asthma diagnosis and management, spirometry administration and interpretation of results, and referral to specialists for testing.
- 4: Describe the role of the environment in asthma management, including how to conduct an environmental history and educate patients and caregivers on the mitigation of environmental asthma triggers.
Why NYS PCAP?
Quality, guidelines-based care is essential to the proper diagnosis and management of asthma for both children and adults. Engaging in NYS PCAP as a PCP participant supports translation of quality care to best serve patients with asthma. Expanding PCP capacity for delivering asthma care according to the latest clinical guidelines can:
- Improve asthma- related health outcomes and quality of life
- Support the health system’s capacity for specialists to focus on high-risk patients
- Reduce delays in treatment
The NYS PCAP Program Structure
1) Introductory Session
NYS PCAP Observation Day starts with a 30-minute introductory session with the preceptor and participant. The preceptor will make introductions, outline program goals and objectives, and review the toolkit and materials. The participant completes a pre-test to provide a baseline of current asthma knowledge.
2) Shadow Patient Visits
The participant joins the preceptor as they complete asthma patient visits. An average of five to eight visits will be completed, including a mix of new patient appointments and follow-up appointments. In between visits, the preceptor reviews relevant information and links experiences to the program objectives.
3) Debrief and Concluding Session
NYS PCAP Observation Day ends with a 30-45 minute concluding session. The participant and the preceptor reconvene to debrief from the shadowing experience, answer questions, and complete a post-test. Results from the pre- and post- tests will be discussed.
4) Guidelines-Based Asthma Strategy
The participant and preceptor review a list of guidelines-based asthma strategies and select one
for the participant to implement in their practice.
5) Follow-Up
Follow-up is conducted with all participants to provide additional support on the delivery of guidelines-based asthma care and to determine program effectiveness. Preceptors are available for communication post-program completion and technical assistance webinars will be held quarterly for all participants.
Interested Preceptors
Interested in becoming a PCAP Preceptor? NYS PCAP is looking for asthma specialists to serve as preceptors for the program.
Interested PCP Participants
Interested in becoming a PCP participant? Meeting NYS PCAP’s four objectives will give you the foundation needed to begin delivering asthma care in your practices.