Pediatric Asthma Coalition of the Capital Region

The Pediatric Asthma Coalition of the Capital Region is a coalition of health professionals, community organizations and individuals dedicated to reducing the burden of childhood asthma. Whitney M. Young, Jr. Health Services, based in Albany, New York, functions as the lead agency.

Our goal is to decrease asthma morbidity and mortality in children of the Capital Region with poor socio-economic status. In order to achieve this, we work with providers throughout our nine-county region who care for significant numbers of children who have Medicaid, Medicaid Managed Care, or are uninsured, to implement the Chronic Care Model to improve overall asthma management at the practice level. We utilize the Provider Champion concept from the National Health Disparities Collaborative. Providers with an interest in implementing the Chronic Care Model pilot this process with small populations. As they become successful they become role models for new practices joining our initiative.

We are currently tracking approximately 1,000 children from 7 practices, including an urban school-based health program, on the following measures:

• Percentage of persistent asthmatics receiving controller medications (Current: 85.2%, Goal: >95%) 
• Percentage of children with current assessment of severity and control (Current: 66.2%, Goal: >90%) 
• Percentage of children with a current asthma action plan (Current: 45.8%, Goal: >90%) 
• Percentage of children/families with a current self-management goal (Current: 44.2%, Goal: >70%) 
• Percentage of children who have had one or more emergency room visit in the previous 6 months (Current: 12.4%, Goal: 20% reduction over baseline in 2009) 
• Average number of symptom-free days in previous 2 weeks (Current: 10.2, Goal: >10)