These pages represent summary data provided by Osco Pharmacy (An Albertson’s Company) to the Chicago Asthma Consortium for the purpose of asthma surveillance in the City of Chicago. All data was provided using coded identifiers with all personal identifying information removed to protect patient confidentiality. The database contains records for all prescriptions for asthma-related medications grouped by drug class. This data included prescriptions filled by individuals residing in the City of Chicago and covered the time period of 12/1/00 to 11/30/01. The records included both the zip code of patient residence and the zip code of the physician or provider office. No more detailed address information was provided and an individual patient could not be identified from the database. The strength of this database is that it includes patients of all payer types, not just Medicaid or a single HMO. The limitations of this approach are that individuals are identified by asthma-related prescriptions rather than diagnosis, hence patients with other less common diseases such as COPD or sarcoidosis, which are treated using similar medications may also be included. This is less of a problem with the pediatric age group. Another limitation is that patients, while tending to obtain their medications at one site, are by no means required to do so. The analysis performed on this data is done with the realization that patients may also obtain medications from other pharmacies, mail order, or through physician samples.

Percentage of pediatric patients with appropriate asthma therapy

This analysis attempts to extrapolate the percentage of patients with appropriate care in each zip code using prescription data provided by Osco pharmacy (An Albertson’s Company). The group under consideration includes all patients filling more than one prescription for asthma-related medications. These criteria were adopted to exclude those patients who might fill a single prescription at an Osco pharmacy, but receive the majority of their prescriptions through some other source such as a mail order pharmacy. A patient was judged to have at least daily use of beta agonists during that year if three or more prescriptions for beta agonists were filled by that individual in a twelve-month period. If less than three canisters of inhaled steroids were filled by that same individual, their inhaled steroid therapy was judged to be sub-optimal. Patients using less than daily-inhaled beta agonists (less than three beta agonist canisters filled per year) may not need inhaled steroid therapy and were judged (for the purpose of this analysis) as receiving adequate inhaled steroid therapy. The data represents the percent of patients age 3-17 or age 18-64 residing within a given zip code with adequate inhaled steroid therapy.

Adequacy of Inhaled Steroid Use by Zip Code of Provider

It is of interest to note not only where patients are living, but also where they are receiving care, and the adequacy of that care. In this analysis, the zip code of providers writing prescriptions for asthma related medications was used. The criteria described in “Percentage of pediatric patients with appropriate asthma therapy” was used to determine the proportion of patients treated by providers within a given zip code who had adequate asthma therapy.
The maps in this section display the percentage of patients with appropriate use of inhaled steroids grouped by the zip code of the provider writing the prescription. The intent of the page is to help target educational programs towards physicians or providers.