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Childhood asthma is an epidemic in Duval County, and a 2008 report by the Duval County Health Department found the county had 24 percent more asthma-related emergency room visits than the state average. The Emergency Center at Baptist Medical Center alone received more than 1,300 asthma-related visits in 2008.
Not surprisingly, then, asthma is the number-one reason our community’s children miss school and their parents miss work.
Now the Community Asthma Partnership at Wolfson Children’s Hospital has partnered with the Duval County Health Department to better manage children’s asthma in the physician’s office, using the clinically proven Easy Breathing program.
The first location to use Easy Breathing is the Health Department’s South Jax Family Health Center, which incorporated the program June 17.
“The Community Asthma Partnership would like to offer Easy Breathing to primary care offices throughout Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia,” said Lynn Sherman, director of Community Health for Baptist Health. “Because of its proven success in other communities, we believe Easy Breathing can make a significant improvement in the management of children’s asthma and therefore, in their quality of life.”
Dr. Michelle Cloutier of Connecticut developed the program to provide primary care offices with a system to quickly and easily assess, treat and re-evaluate children’s asthma. Published studies of the program report impressive results. For example, one study found a 47 percent increase in the use of inhaled medicine, a 56 percent reduction in outpatient visits and a 91 percent decrease in emergency room visits among Connecticut children who were treated using the Easy Breathing program.
Two physicians who serve on the Community Asthma Partnership’s Advisory Board learned about the program two years ago, and Cloutier subsequently visited Jacksonville to provide training in its use.
Easy Breathing’s success lies in its simplicity and structure. During one office visit, the health care provider uses:
• A survey, filled out by the child and family.
• A standardized assessment, based on the survey’s findings, that categorizes the child’s asthma as mild, mild persistent, moderate persistent or severe persistent.
• A guidebook, called the Buffet, which lays out the course of treatment based on the asthma’s severity and the National Institute of Health’s evidence-based guidelines. The guidebook stays in exam rooms for easy and continued reference.
• A treatment plan, which the child and family go home with, to manage asthma.
The Community Asthma Partnership provides all those materials for providers’ use.
Each time the child visits the physician’s office, they are reassessed using a simple list of questions, and treatment is adjusted as needed and directed by the Buffet.
“I see the program as very beneficial,” said Dr. Zenaida Lavina, a pediatrician at the South Jax Family Health Center. “It helps us diagnose and manage asthma in a standardized way, and families are very happy because we can give them a treatment plan to take home. I am really happy with how it is going.”
Each physician’s office that uses Easy Breathing will be able to offer training in asthma management to children and families, as well as office staff, through the Community Asthma Partnership.
Also, the partnership will present a monthly Asthma Day at South Jax Family Health Center so families can come and receive help with any asthma-related issues. This, too, would be available at any physician’s office that decides to use the program.
“Easy Breathing will provide primary care providers with many tools to help our community’s children and families successfully manage asthma,” said Sherman.