Incoming ACAAI president sees three trends impacting asthma, allergy care

Key takeaways:

• Gailen D. Marshall Jr., MD, PhD, FACP, FACAAI, does not believe that AI will replace clinician-patient interaction.
• Telehealth can help practices expand to reach underserved areas.

Technology and trends in practice management will impact the way clinicians provide allergy and asthma care in the very near future, Gailen D. Marshall Jr., MD, PhD, FACP, FACAAI, told Healio.

“Certainly, AI is something that everyone is interested in. It’s a very sexy, current topic,” said Marshall, who will begin his term as president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology during its 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting, Nov. 9-13, in Anaheim, California.

“It’s been touted in many different fields. It’s really just beginning to feel its way into allergy/immunology,” Marshall, who is chair of allergy and immunology, among other positions, at University of Mississippi Medical Center, continued.

Marshall described allergy and immunology as a “far-thinking” specialty with changing patients, including older patients with late-onset asthma and allergy, so its clinicians need to adapt to these changes.

“What are new tools we need to use? AI is an example of that. But where it’s going to fit, I think, is still to be determined,” he said.

For example, Marshall does not believe that AI will replace clinician-patient interaction and its healing touch because the clinician-patient relationship is a critical need.

“Now, can that be augmented?” he asked. “I believe it can be.”

Telehealth is another example of how technology can transform specialty care such as asthma and allergy, Marshall said, especially as it enables clinicians to support underserved regions where specialists are not available for patients.

“Perhaps for geographic reasons, they’re not able to travel to a center where there is an allergist available,” Marshall said. “I think telehealth-based practices have a future as well.”

Marshall called telehealth a very active area at ACAAI, with many members interested in it and engaging with it as pioneers explore new ways to use it and then teach others how it works.

“It’s another area that going to be expanding rather rapidly,” he said.

The push for more clinical productivity in academic and community practices alike will affect how physicians treat their patients, Marshall said.

“We have a greater responsibility for clinical productivity,” he said. “In the community practices, there are more and more consolidations that are business based.”

As a result, Marshall continued, more and more physicians are employees not just in group practices but in practices that are part of larger businesses.

“How that model is going to work in terms of the economic return for the provider, how it will interact with other components to make it either more efficient or more challenging? All of these are elements that are being actively explored and are going to continue to evolve over the next years as the face of medicine in America changes,” he said.

The face of allergy, asthma and immunology care will change as a result as well, he added.

“How that will look 20 years from now is still to be determined,” Marshall said. “But there are an awful lot of people within the College who are very interested and very engaged in having a hand in directing what that will look like for us.”

Marshall emphasized that ACAAI’s leadership supports those efforts for its members, regardless of their practice setting.

“Whether they’re a single private practice allergist-immunologist, whether they are in an allergy group, whether they work for a large corporation or whether they are in an academic practice,” Marshall said, “the College is there for all practicing clinicians to help with their specific needs and then transfer that information to others that can use it as an example to apply for themselves.”