St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium

Programs: Since 2000, St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium has been developing and delivering interventions to reduce asthma morbidity in the region?s most at-risk areas. It has sought to build and strengthen linkages and relationships between various components of care and persons living with asthma. Through its Controlling Asthma in St. Louis project, St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium focuses on interventions in four key components of asthma care: (1) primary care clinics; (2) community pharmacies; (3) schools; and (4) community outreach agencies. The primary care clinic initiative, Community Asthma Program (CAP),works within community-based primary care clinics and focuses on provider asthma treatment guidelines, improving patient communication and education in a clinical setting, and preventive asthma care. "Asthma Friendly Pharmacies" focuses on improving and increasing brief asthma-related interventions by pharmacists and connecting information from the pharmacy to the primary care provider. "Asthma 411", a partnership between the St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium, Institute for Family Medicine, and school nurses, is working to improve available health services at schools and link information to the primary care provider. While Asthma 411 is designed to introduce a number of strategies aimed to improve asthma management for school nurses, the most critical element is the introduction of a consulting physician who not only enhances the role of the school nurse, but, in many cases, allows the nurse to properly treat students in crisis, both with and without asthma. Partnering with Catholic Charities Community Services, a private social service provider, St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium implements a program called Asthma H.E.L.P. (Health Care, Environment, Learning, Prevention). Asthma H.E.L.P. is as an outreach and casework program designed to provide support to low-income families with children who have asthma. This family-centered program uses ongoing home visits, casework methodology, group support and interventions, and educational opportunities to (1) address barriers to consistent quality care, (2) identify and reduce environmental triggers?particularly portable environmental and behavioral changes?and (3) improve self-management of asthma as a means to reduce asthma morbidity. In addition to these evidenced-based initiatives, St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium provides education for the general public, health care professionals, and targeted groups, free asthma screenings, tools for improving asthma management, and advocates for best practices and policies that lead to quality asthma care and improved asthma management.