Promoting Quality Asthma Care in Hospital Emergency Departments: Past, Present, and Future Efforts in Florida

Conclusion

Promoting comprehensive, integrative asthma care within and beyond emergency departments will remain a top priority for the Florida Asthma Program. Our interdisciplinary team of program managers and external evaluators continues to explore additional strategies for creating transformational change in the quality and utilization of emergency care for Floridians of all ages who live with asthma.

Acknowledgements: I thank Ms. Kim Streit and other members of the Florida Hospital Association for their outstanding assistance in conceptualizing and implementing this evaluation project. I thank Ms. Julie Dudley for developing content for the collaborative learning webinars described herein, as well as proposing and operationalizing Florida’s Learning and Action Networks for asthma care. I thank Ms. Jamie Forrest for facilitating delivery and evaluation of the hospital learning webinars. I thank Dr. Brittny Wells for helping to develop the Learning and Action Networks initiative in conjunction with other programs, and facilitating continued collaboration with hospitals. I thank Dr. Asit Sarkar for coordinating the Asthma Friendly Homes Program in Miami-Dade, and for helping to bring this program to other Florida communities. I thank Dr. Henry Carretta for his partnership in conducting the preliminary evaluation survey, and for his assistance with planning evaluation of hospital care quality improvement activities for the current project cycle.

Corresponding author: Alexandra C.H. Nowakowski, PhD, MPH, FSU College of Medicine, Regional Campus – Orlando,50 E. Colonial Drive, Suite 200, Orlando, FL 32801.

Funding/support: Evaluation of the Florida Asthma Program’s preliminary work with hospitals was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number 5U59EH000523-03 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Current program development and evaluation efforts in this domain are supported by CDC Cooperative Agreement Number 2U59EH000523. Contents of this manuscript are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC.

Financial disclosures: None.