Providers' Consensus Statement on Improving Asthma

Why the Health Sector Needs to Implement Best Practices for Asthma: A Provider's Perspective, contains the recommendations that emerged from a process beginning in March 2008, where Massachusetts nurses and doctors came together, facilitated by the Asthma Regional Council and University of Massachusetts Lowell, to discuss the urgent need for action to reduce the burden of asthma in the Commonwealth. The participants worked in hospitals, large and small practices, community health centers and schools and they represent primary care practitioners, pulmonary and allergy specialists, community nurses, program directors and researchers. Taking into account the recent update of the National Asthma Management Guidelines and their experience with a range of programs to support patients in keeping their asthma under control, and with particular focus on the disproportionate impact of asthma on low income people and racial and ethnic minorities, this "Consensus Statement" outlines immediate steps by institutions paying for and providing care for more effectively implementing best practices to begin to reverse the asthma epidemic. The document has been "signed on" by many prominent health care leaders, practitioners and associations. (2009)