Asthma Action Plan for Physicians
The Asthma Action Plan is a most essential component of Disease Management. It serves as a means of communication between the physician, the patient and care manager. It enables the patient to work with his/her physician in a collaborative manner and to assume responsibility for the initiation of self-care when an exacerbation occurs.
The Asthma Action Plan may seem complex at first glance, but completing it is fairly straightforward and should require but a few minutes of the physician's time.
The Green Zone
The Green Zone is simply a listing of daily medications, dose and frequency.
The Yellow Zone
The Yellow Zone has two stages. The first guides patient action when asthma symptoms worsen and/or peak flow measurements fall. This is commonly the advice to use a beta-agonist inhaler, in most instances albuterol, several times within a short period of time, for example, 2-3 puffs every 15 minutes times three. The second stage of the Yellow Zone is based on the patient's response to the inhaled medication. If symptoms are relieved and peak flows rise to approximate personal best, a return to baseline meds is in order. The physician may choose to have the patient call the physician office a nurse case manager at that time. If the asthma is no better following the inhaled bronchodilator, the albuterol should be repeated and additional medication such inhaled or oral corticosteroids should be considered. The plan should always specify that the patient call his/her at that time.
The Red Zone
Finally, if the symptoms worsen, this is a Red Zone alert - an emergency situation that calls, not only for further medication, including systemic steroids, but also a call to the doctor, a call to 911 or an immediate trip to the ER.
If a patient does not have a personalized Asthma Action Plan from their doctor, we encourage the use of an Asthma Self-Management Plan
To view the Asthma Action Plans you will needAdobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this program installed on your computer, you can get the program free. If you have trouble loading these files into Acrobat, then you may need to get another version or a patch at the link to the right. 
