Asthma Change Package
The System For Delivering High Quality Asthma Care
This change package is a guide for achieving breakthrough improvements in community asthma care. It provides quick access to a tremendous knowledge base on program strategies and approaches that drive improved health outcomes and program sustainability. It is built on strong evidence: the University of Michigan Asthma Health Outcomes Project (AHOP); the chronic care, program improvement, and social change literatures; in-depth analysis of highly effective asthma programs; and lessons from the more than 250 members of the Communities in Action. Synthesis of this research base reveals a dynamic system—the System for Delivering High-Quality Asthma Care—that drives successful asthma program design, delivery, outcomes, growth, and longevity.
What is the System for Delivering High-Quality Asthma Care?
The System for Delivering High-Quality Asthma Care is a conceptual framework that identifies the core elements of successful asthma programs and the processes that drive their implementation, continuous improvement, and endurance. The System is flexible and any asthma program, regardless of its size, institutional home (e.g., health plan, health care provider, community program), budget, target community, or level of development, can use the System to guide its work. How you apply the System will depend on where your program is in its evolution. As programs mature, the System evolves with them. The applicability to your program and your understanding of different elements of the System is likely to change over time. Early on, you may focus on using the System as a guide for getting started. After several years, you may focus more on using it to make your program last.
How Can I Use the Change Package?
The links in the toolbar on the left, present the change concepts and strategies that successful asthma programs have applied to incorporate the System for Delivering High-Quality Asthma Care into their programs. ‘First Things First’ and ‘Making It Last’ headings appear in the table to help programs at different stages of development focus in on the System components and strategies that may be most relevant to their situations. It is important to recognize, however, that this System is dynamic. Its effectiveness results from the ongoing interaction between its components. The most successful and enduring asthma programs continually pursue all of the System components, deepening, refining, and enriching these components as their programs mature. Community asthma programs that achieve breakthrough results are works in progress and most put the components of success in place over time. High-quality asthma care is a marathon and not a sprint.
This Change Package is designed to capture the current knowledge base. The Communities in Action Network updates this document as real-time learning and information exchange drive the ongoing improvement of asthma care. This release is version 3.