Child With Asthma

Background: Asthma continues to be a significant public health issue for children. The extent to which tailored evidence-based interventions address the needs of children at varied levels of risk in the community is unclear.

Objective: Using data from five impoverished communities with high levels of pediatric asthma morbidity, this study assessed morbidity outcomes associated with tailored evidence-based interventions after stratifying children for risk based on two variables that reflect control, severity, and behavior: hospitalizations and daily use of a controller medication.

Methods: A pre/post evaluation (n=721) was used to categorize and analyze change in outcomes for four groups of patients: patients with one or more hospitalizations in the past 12 months with or without a baseline controller medication use, and no hospitalizations in the past 12 months with or without baseline controller medication use.

Results: Patients with one or more hospitalizations in the past 12 months and no baseline controller use made the biggest gains in several areas, including the largest percent increase in daily controller medication usage and asthma action plans, and the largest decrease in days and nights of symptoms. However, other groups made larger gains in reducing school days missed and emergency department visits and increasing parent confidence, consistent with the notion that community-based interventions can help a diverse set of patients make progress.

Conclusion: Practitioners in low-income communities where there are varying levels of resources and disease severity can tailor interventions to each child's needs and make substantial gains in outcomes across a range of risk profiles

Click here to view the full study.

Genesis TPM’s Asthma Action Plan is a evidenced based interactive chronic disease portal; where patients and caregivers are collaboratively linked, delivering a tool for the management of Asthma, putting the patient in charge of their condition, keeping them involved with their progress and keeping them healthy.

Genesis TPM now includes management through, Asthma Action Plan, Asthma Control Test, educational tools, free access to Telemedicine portal, prescription management and much more.

Studies indicate that when those three evidence-based public health interventions are packaged and provided to children, they have the potential to yield a positive return on investment. Health Investments that Pay Off: Strategies for Addressing Asthma in Children examines the interventions, which have been found to reduce emergency department visits and hospitalizations, improve asthma control, decrease the frequency of symptoms, decrease work and school absenteeism and improve quality of life.

“Asthma cannot presently be prevented or cured, but people who have asthma can live a symptom-free, fully active life with proper treatment and services, beginning at an early age,” said NGA Executive Director Dan Crippen. “To improve health outcomes among children and reduce medical expenses, governors can incorporate interventions into their overall agenda for state health care transformation.”

Governors can take the following actions to implement and finance asthma-based interventions:

·Use a broad range of qualified providers to support effective and efficient delivery of asthma services;

·Encourage collaboration and resource sharing across public and private programs and sectors;

·Use health insurers to improve clinical management and payment for services; and

·Build efficiency and sustainability for the interventions through evaluations.

 To learn more about the NGA Center for Best Practices Health Division, please visit www.nga.org/cms/center/health