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This infographic was created to highlight the issues and create awareness of childhood asthma. 

Asthma affects 7 million children in the US and is the leading cause of chronic illness in children.

It can often be hard to diagnose due to symptoms similar to other illnesses, and the fact that not all children have the same symptoms.

It is very challenging to diagnose asthma in under 5’s. The symptoms can be caused by various other illnesses, and young children do not understand well enough to use the breathing equipment that a test requires.

Read More: Asthma in Children: Symptoms, Triggers and Treatments (Infographic)

When integrated into the electronic health record (EHR) and clinical workflow, clinical decision support (CDS) can enhance health care quality and improve patient outcomes.1 Using computerized alerts, reminders, forms, templates, data reports, evidence-based protocols, and other tools, CDS organizes, filters, and presents clinical knowledge and patient-specific information to guide decisions at the point of care.2 This brief discusses how an asthma CDS tool can promote the consistent use of clinical practice guidelines for asthma, and how incorporating a referral form template can promote wider use of in-home asthma programs as an effective complement to asthma care in clinical settings.

The four Care Coordination program sites participated in a cross-site evaluation led by the Center for Managing Chronic Disease at the University of Michigan to assess outcome and process measures focused on care coordination and clinical outcomes.  The following survey was the source for quantitative cross-site data, and was administered at baseline. Preliminary findings from this initiative across four program sites indicate that the percent of participants with “not well controlled” asthma decreased from 49 percent at baseline to 18 percent at 12 month follow-up.