Improving Asthma Care

Promote Health & Healthy Communities
Increase Effectiveness and Efficiency
Keep Kids out of the Hospital
Reduce Suffering

Why is this important?

Although most children with asthma never require hospitalization, some experience repeated hospitalizations. Improved self-management, reduced exposure to environmental triggers (such as pests and secondhand smoke), and improved education can reduce preventable asthma hospitalizations.

What we did

We worked with members of the population health team from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab to identify a group of children who were hospitalized three or more times for asthma in the prior year. We focused our efforts at three CHOP practices in Philadelphia. These families received a bundle of services including:

1. Tailored education from asthma educators
2. Discharge medications in hand
3. Referral to allergy and/or pulmonary specialists
4. Referral to the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP)

CAPP addresses outpatient and household barriers to asthma control through clinic-based care coordination and home visits.

Results

Since May 2015, we have enrolled almost all eligible children. The need to return to the Emergency Department and potentially be admitted for an inpatient hospital stay was reduced by 50 percent within 30 days following treatment for an asthma hospitalization.

Updated October, 2018