Health Resources in Action’s Asthma Regional Council (ARC) has been awarded the National Environmental Leadership Award in Asthma Management by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the New England Asthma Innovation Collaborative project. ARC was one of only four awardees nationally.
ARC established the New England Asthma Innovation Collaborative (NEAIC) in 2012 with a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Health Care Innovation Award. NEAIC is a multi-state, multi-sector initiative covering four states including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. The overarching goal of NEAIC has been to support infrastructures that deliver home visiting services to primarily Medicaid and CHIP-enrolled children (ages 2-17) with poorly controlled asthma.
In order to achieve the project’s aim, NEAIC trained clinical and Community Health Workers (CHW) to provide cost-effective, high-quality and culturally-competent asthma home visiting services. CHWs, supervised by a nurse or certified asthma educator, provided three to four home visits for 1145 children, educating their caregivers and delivering cost effective supplies to help families reduce environmental asthma triggers. Through their efforts, NEIAC has seen a substantial decrease in hospital admissions and urgent care visits and a reduction in missed school days and work days due to asthma. Though CMMI funding is completed, several provider sites are continuing the intervention, while together, NEAIC continues to promote sustainable financing for this important intervention.
The goal of the four National Environmental Leadership Awards in Asthma management is to improve the health of asthmatic children in sustainable ways that can be reproduced by all health care systems. Other award winners nationwide this year were: AmeriHealth Caritas in Philadelphia; Urban Health Plan in the Bronx, NY; and Public Health – Seattle & King County, Seattle, Wash.
>>Read the EPA’s News Release Here
The full list of NEAIC’s partners includes:
Clinical Providers
- Boston Children’s Hospital (Boston, MA)
- Baystate Children’s Hospital (Springfield, MA)
- Boston Medical Center (Boston, MA)
- Children’s Medical Group (Hamden, CT)
- Middlesex Hospital (Middletown, CT)
- Rhode Island Hospital / Hasbro Children’s Hospital (Providence, RI)
- Rutland Regional Medical Center (Rutland, VT)
- St. Joseph’s Health Clinic (Providence, RI)
- Thundermist (Woonsocket, RI)
Workforce Development Partners
- Central Massachusetts Area Health Education Center of Central MA, Outreach Worker Training Institute (Worcester, MA)
- American Lung Association of the Northeast (Waltham, MA)
- Boston Public Health Commission, Community Health Education Center (Boston, MA)
- Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers (Worcester, MA)
Medicaid Payers
- BMC HealthNet Plan (Boston, MA)
- Department of Vermont Health Access (VT State Medicaid)
- Connecticut Department of Social Services (CT State Medicaid)
- Health New England (Springfield, MA)
- MassHealth (MA State Medicaid)
- Neighborhood Health Plan of Massachusetts (Boston, MA)
- Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island (Providence, RI)
