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The Massachusetts Strategic Plan for Asthma is the first state asthma plan in the nation to address how primary prevention can reduce the onset of asthma. This Strategic Plan outlines goals and funding mechanisms to promote partnerships and services that ensure healthy populations stay that way: healthy and asthma-free.

2011 may have seen the end of a two-year project funded through the National Asthma Control Initiative (NACI) to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center and the North Brooklyn Health Network, both part of The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC).

But what happened next was no ending. 

HHC Woodhull’s asthma program managers were so successful at coupling asthma-care training (plus one-on-one coaching for health professionals) with focused outreach to patients and families that HHC’s C-suite executives made a critical decision.

Read the full story by clicking on the link. 

Asthma Action Plans (AAPs) are written plans developed specifically for each patient in partnership with the health care provider, providing instructions for asthma management ranging from daily actions, such as what kind of medication to take and when, to guidance on when to call your doctor or go to the emergency room. These plans are a key component of helping bring a patient’s asthma under control—and keeping it that way.

And when the plans are not understood, the result can mean increased visits to the emergency department and hospitalizations, which are a strain and financial drain on families and health care providers, not to mention the physical and emotional toll that they take on the person with asthma.

These resources include a Spanish-language Asthma Action Plan, and seek to train both the Latino parents of children with asthma and the community health workers/promotores who reach many of them.