- Monitoring and controlling childhood asthma presents many challenges.
- The CHAMP program in Shelby County, Tennessee, is tackling these issues proactively.
- Using a multifaceted community approach, program officials say they are making a real difference in people’s lives.
- They say the improvements include reduced exacerbations, fewer emergency department visits, and reduced costs.
In the United States, about
In 2020, childhood asthma resulted in 270,330 visits to the emergency department and 27,055 hospital inpatient stays.
Hospitalization rates for children with asthma, however, are not evenly distributed.
In a new paper, it’s reported that the highest rates of pediatric hospitalizations in Tennessee is in Shelby County, which is home to around 925,000 people.
In this region, each year there is an average of 1,996 emergency department visits and 165 hospitalizations for asthma per 100,000 individuals.
These visits are more common in people enrolled on TennCare, the Tennessee Medicaid program, than those with private insurance.
In addition, the paper notes that children with asthma tend to be concentrated in areas with fewer primary care options.
In 2012, the Le Bonheur Children’s Physicians and Community Outreach division set up an innovative program to address this need. They called it the Changing High-Risk Asthma in Memphis through Partnership (CHAMP).
The CHAMP program aims to “improve asthma management for children who experience frequent and severe asthma exacerbations and preventable hospital visits.”
Recently, some of the members of CHAMP published their new paper in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, charting their methods and successes to date.
Their methodology is based on these principles:
- Using evidence-based methods.
- Establishing good relationships with individuals and the community.
- Improving the healthcare experience.
- Hiring employees who represent the…
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