Improving Treatment Adherence in Pediatric Atopic Dermatitis

Announcer:
This is DermConsult on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Nicole Harter, who will be discussing strategies for optimizing pediatric atopic dermatitis treatment adherence. Dr. Harter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Pediatric Dermatology Fellowship Program Director at University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Here she is now.

We do write down an action plan for every patient, and it talks about which topical medication you use when. And it may say, for severe flares on the body of atopic dermatitis, you use this medicine. Once it calms down, you use this medicine. And then when your skin is clear, you do your daily skin care plan, which means frequent bathing, bland soaps or cleansers, and thick, heavy emollients such as like petrolatum or thick bland white cream to moisturize the skin. And they have an action plan of, “Oh, okay, when my skin is bad, I use this one; when it’s better, I use this one; and when it’s clear, this is my basic skincare plan.”

We also really welcome questions and concerns. We have an electronic medical record. We encourage our patients and families to be on our electronic portal. They can send us messages and photos. We are a specialty that is driven by visual recognition, so it can be really helpful. If a family is struggling, they can send us photos of what’s going on so we can help triage. “Oh, you know, use this medicine,” or “Actually, I think there’s something else going on. You need to be seen in our office or with your primary care doctor.” And also, many of the companies, especially with advanced targeted therapeutic agents, have really helpful patient assistance programs and websites, and they can reach out or look at videos on these websites that may talk about medication administration or nursing support, for tips, tricks, and tools about how do we successfully apply this for patients. So a lot of it is education, encouragement, and close follow-up. If it’s a young child at an initial visit for AD, it can be a lot of information, so I’ll bring them back at a closer interval to make sure we’re getting improvement, reinforce where we’re at, and maybe change our acute treatment plan into a longer-term maintenance treatment plan overall.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Nicole Harter talking about how we can improve adherence to atopic dermatitis treatment. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit  DermConsult on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!