APA-AAI president-elect talks upcoming conference, advancements in treatment

Key takeaways:

• Heather O’Connell, PA-C, set goals to improve communications and expand the organization’s reach.
• The conference will present research on biologics therapy and oral immunotherapy, among other topics.

As asthma and allergy continue to affect more people, the importance of advanced practitioners in enhancing patient safety, addressing health care disparities and increasing treatment access has come to the forefront of patient care.

That is why the Association of PAs in Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (APA-AAI) will be holding its 16th annual conference from Aug. 2 to 4 in San Antonio. The conference will include several speakers and address topics across allergy and asthma treatment.

The conference also hopes to draw in practitioners from all over the country and make emerging research and information accessible even to those new to the specialty, APA-AAI president-elect Heather O’Connell, PA-C, told Healio.

“We try to cover things that providers may not only just need a refresher on, but also new things happening in the field,” O’Connell said. “We try to emphasize topics that you can take something home from the lecture and put it into place or maybe change the way that you’re practicing today.”

Topics will include drug allergy, anaphylaxis, ENT patients and conditions, periodic fever syndromes, pulmonary function testing, food allergy challenges and diagnoses, and the overlap of asthma and COPD.

“In addition, we’ll have a lecture that I’m excited about, which evaluates the effect of our environment and global warming on allergies for patients,” O’Connell said.

Many advances in treatments from the past couple of years also will be discussed at the conference.

“There is a growth in therapeutics,” O’Connell said. “There are new biologics, and there are old biologics that are being used for new indications and changes in age ranges. It’s an exciting time in terms of the drugs that we have available to our patients.”

Newly FDA-approved omalizumab (Xolair; Genentech/Novartis) for food allergies is just one of the drugs that O’Connell mentioned in terms of new treatment options.

“I think it’ll be a real game changer for our patients,” she said. “Especially for those of us that are using oral immunotherapy in our practices. We’ve got more tools in our toolbox.”

Among the speakers at the conference, O’Connell will be giving a presentation about allergic contact dermatitis.

“We’re going to talk about it in terms of where on the body the patient might experience an allergic reaction to particular allergens,” she said. “For example, if a patient presents with hand dermatitis, what allergens can we be suspicious of and what kind of distribution might they take. I’m also going to talk about therapeutics for that as well. But the bulk of the lecture is about allergens by type and by region of the body.”

As the incoming APA-AAI president, O’Connell hopes to make some positive changes within the organization. She hopes to not only put on a great conference where practitioners can connect with and learn from each other, but also attract new leaders in the field to join.

“We always aim to expand our association memberships and our attendance at the conference,” she said. “We’re going to be working on getting the word out to our allergy APs that maybe aren’t familiar with us or haven’t attended our conference in the past. We’re looking at new ways to communicate with our members as well, potentially through a new app.”

The app could facilitate connections between providers, O’Connell said, although it is still in the works by organization leaders. She also hopes to reincorporate journal reviews with members via the app.

O’Connell further emphasized that the role of advanced practitioners has become more apparent in the field of allergy and asthma, specifically in ways that fill the gaps that physicians aren’t able to meet.

“That might be seeing medication refills and sick visits and annual rechecks before going back to school,” O’Connell said, adding that not only do advanced practitioners do these more routine visits, but they are also doing procedures, patch tests, OIT or desensitizations, and drug and food challenges.

Their role is also emerging in research, she continued.

“We’re still seeing a lot of research in regard to food allergies, biologics and OIT,” O’Connell said.

For example, she said, physician assistants are leading several OIT programs and administering it in their practices.

“PAs and NPs are valuable contributors to allergy research,” she said. “Their clinical and didactic training equips them to understand and implement research methodologies required for accurate data collection. PAs and NPs do this by conducting follow-up visits, collecting data, ensuring adherence to study protocols, and effectively communicating patient outcomes and experiences to researchers.”

Additionally, advanced practitioners are taking the lead in providing patient education.

“We’re no longer just filling in the gaps. We’re also playing a pretty important role in our patients’ lives,” she said. “We’re at the forefront of these new treatments. We’re not just communicating or just diagnosing a patient. We’re telling them, ‘Here’s what you’re allergic to. This is what this allergen is. Here’s how you avoid it. Here’s the resources that you need. Here’s what you need to do when you have a flare-up or a trigger.’ We’re changing lives of patients and families through these conversations that we’re having with them.”

Finally, O’Connell called collaboration between specialists and primary care providers a priority.

“Getting primary care providers to refer to us as a specialty is key,” she said. “Once we can get access to these patients, we can do so much for them. But getting the patient to us continues to be a struggle.”