Asthma Management Program: Why Children's

The Asthma Management Program at Children's Medical Center is an outpatient educational program that helps parents and caregivers learn how to managed their child's asthma. It focuses on asthma education, self-management skills, and coordinates care between the RN care coordinator, the family, the primary health care provider, the school nurse, teachers, coaches, or any other caregivers of the child. We do not provide any medical management; therefore the partnership with the referring provider is a key component to the program.

The six-month bilingual program addresses common issues associated with the way to manage the child's asthma. This includes learning about what is good asthma control (English or Spanish), signs and symptoms of an asthma attack (English or Spanish), triggers (English or Spanish), medications (English or Spanish), what you see during an asthma attack (English and Spanish) and when to get medical help for your child.

To enroll in the program, the child must be between the ages of 0-17 years of age at the time of enrollment, must have a diagnosis of asthma, and must live within the following seven counties: Dallas, Collin, Rockwall, Kaufman, Tarrant, Ellis, or Denton.

Most common insurance plans are accepted, including Medicaid.

The Asthma Management Program includes:

• Six months of bi-weekly telephone contacts by a Certified Asthma Educator (RN)
• Two home visits by an asthma specialist to provide asthma education about medications, other common triggers that may make a child's asthma worse including smoke (English and Spanish) and ozone (English and Spanish)/ozone flag (English and Spanish). The asthma specialist also looks for triggers in the home and teaches ways to eliminate them. The family will be provided with various asthma tools to help better manage the child's asthma including an asthma action plan (English and Spanish), a Peak Flow meter (English and Spanish), a holding chamber, a medication bag to keep all the child's medicines in one place, a pillow encasement to control for dust mites, and various asthma education materials.

Since the program began in 2001, the program has excellent results in reducing the need to be hospitalized or go to the emergency room for asthma, reducing the need for the child to miss school (or the parent to miss work), improve overall asthma control, and improvement in the overall quality of life for the child.

The program results of participants that completed the program in 2011 include: 

• 71% Reduction in missed school or day care days
• 77% Reduction in number of asthma-related Emergency Room visits
• 88% Reduction in number of asthma-related inpatient admissions
• 74% Reduction in number of days caregiver missed work because of child's asthma
• 29% Increase of Asthma Quality of Life score

In addition, the Asthma Management Program at Children's was the first in Texas and the third in the nation to receive certification for Disease-Specific Care by the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation for pediatric asthma. Receiving certification from the Joint Commission proves our asthma program adheres to the highest standards available and is serving the local population in the best ways possible.

For health care providers to refer a child to this program, please complete the order form and fax it to 214-456-2553. Our program adheres to the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Expert Panel Report 3 "Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma."

Parents may call 214-456-5864 to self refer their child to the program. We will then verify insurance and contact the primary health care provider for an order to proceed with enrollment.

Helpful Resources:

Inhaler Cards The Asthma Management Program has developed portable medication cards that have pictures of the inhalers on one side and valuable usage information on the other side. Feel free to print the inhaler pages you are interested in.

Inhaler priming instructions (English or Spanish) The asthma metered dose inhalers have changed to contain the propellant HFA in early 2009 and each inhaler type has its own instructions on care and priming features. (Priming is spraying a few puffs of medicine into the air before the inhaler is actually used to be sure the actual medication is ready use. This is a VERY IMPORTANT step to ensure the correct dose is given. If you have any questions about this, please check with your health care provider.