ABSTRACT
The management of a chronic disease such as asthma involves the patient
regularly visiting and communicating with several health care professionals within the health care system. It is assumed that each one of these health
care professionals will in some way contribute to the management of the
patient’s disease state. The involvement of all members of the health care
team in disease management can then have a positive effect on patient out-
comes (1,2). In fact, a co-operative and co-ordinated approach to health
care has been considered an essential requirement for the delivery of health
care since the 1990s (3,4) and research has shown that highly successful
interventions in chronic disease management involve the active participation of a variety of health care professionals (5).
