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guidelines : Pediatric Asthma : action plan
Massachusetts Pediatric Asthma Action Plan
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners and representatives from 21 Massachusetts health care organizations* have joined together to endorse an initiative to promote a key component of best practices in the management of pediatric asthma: the use of written asthma management plans.
The Managed Care and Public Health Collaborative of New England identified four key components essential for best practice for pediatric asthma. They include:
- Regular assessment and monitoring, including severity classification;
- Control of environmental factors and triggers that contribute to symptoms and disease severity;
- Pharmacological therapy, including long-term inhaled anti-inflammatories; and
- Educating the child, the family and other caregivers to adhere to a written asthma management plan.
Research has shown that asthma programs using written asthma action plans have resulted in significant reductions in patient morbidity and service utilization such as emergency department visits and hospitalization. Unfortunately, too many children with asthma do not have written plans, adversely affecting the ability of parents, school nurses, and children to effectively manage the disease. In addition to helping improve patient outcomes, written asthma management plans enhance communication between you, your patients, families and caregivers.
In September of 2001 MHQP sent a starter package of Asthma Action Plan forms to all primary care and asthma specialty clinicians across Massachusetts to make it easy for them to implement this component of pediatric asthma best practices.
The multi-colored, three part forms are available to you free of charge, in multiple foreign languages and can be easily re-ordered. See Action Plan tab for list of languages, ordering information, and list of organizations that endorsed the Pediatric Action Plan.
Pediatric Asthma Action Plan Evaluation
In May of 2003, MHQP conducted an evaluation of the Pediatric Asthma Action Plan initiative. This evaluation was done in collaboration with the New England Public Health and Managed Care Collaborative through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, New England Region.
The evaluation consisted of a physician survey, school nurse interviews and a review of Action Plan distribution statistics. A copy of the survey and a summary of the results are provided in the pediatric evaluation tab.
For more information with this project, please contact:
Janet Peluso
Program Manager
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners
email : jpeluso@mhqp.org
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