Asthma Awareness Month: Inclusion of National Guidelines into Clinical Practice

Date: 05/13/24

In support of Asthma Awareness Month, Superior HealthPlan would like to share the American Lung Association's advocacy for the inclusion of National Asthma Guidelines into Clinical Practice. Asthma affects more than 26 million Americans, including 5.5 million children. It's a condition that leads to millions of emergency department visits and incurs billions of healthcare costs yearly. This initiative provides crucial resources for asthma self-management education programs, evidence-based quality improvement initiatives, and essential resources for developing effective asthma policies.

The American Lung Association recommends the following strategies to expand asthma knowledge, implement evidenced-based asthma interventions into practice and educate patients on available asthma or lung health resources.

Expanding Knowledge

• Attend an Asthma Educator Institute course to learn about asthma-based care and guidelines.
• Attend a Spirometry training by visiting the American Lung Association’s Spirometry Training webpage.
• Understand severe asthma and access resources for patients available in the community or their insurance plans.
• Learn strategies to improve asthma self-management at school, home, and work.
• Participate in the Asthma Basics free online course available on the American Lung Association’s Asthma Basics webpage .
• Help patients learn about clinical trials and how to enroll in a study.
• Sign up for news and updates from the American Lung Association, by submitting your email under Become a Lung Health Insider on the American Lung Association’s Get Involved webpage.

Putting Evidenced-based Strategies into Practice

• Use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) EXHALE strategies found on the CDC Exhale webpage.
• Improve health outcomes by partnering with the American Lung Association. To learn more, please visit the American Lung Association's Asthma Quality Improvement Enhancing Care for Children with Asthma webpage.
• Become a trained facilitator in one or more of the American Lung Association's self-management education programs.
• Join the American Lung Association's efforts to improve asthma through public policy and federal and state asthma advocacy.

Coordination for Lung Health Resources

• Promote Asthma Basics free online course  available on the American Lung Association’s Asthma Basics webpage to patients and their caregivers.
• Recommend that patients take the American Lung Association's Is your Asthma Under Control assessment.
• Provide patients and their families with evidence-based asthma videos and printed resources.
• Coordinate environmental safety assessments with patient's insurance plans or other community resources.
• Direct patients to in-person and online support groups.

For more information, please visit the American Lung Association's Putting the National Asthma Guidelines into Practice webpage.

Additional resources to assist members with managing their asthma can be found on Superior's Asthma Help webpage.