Inpatient asthma education program

Asthma is the second leading admitting diagnosis at Children's Hospital Boston (CHB), having an impact on many patients and families annually. To improve education for parents of patients hospitalized with asthma and increase health care providers' completion of individualized asthma action plans (AAPs), nurse experts established a comprehensive inpatient asthma education program based on the 2007 National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute/National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NHLBI/NAEPP) guidelines. These guidelines recommend that caregivers teach and reinforce asthma education at every opportunity across the health care continuum. The paradigm of asthma education now embraces approaches that promote self-management (Shah, Roydhouse, & Sawyer, 2008), and AAPs are a key strategy in self-management education (Jones, 2008). The CHB inpatient program, led by the inpatient asthma nurse practitioner (IANP), combines several teaching strategies for parents and facilitates completion of individualized AAPs. Data collected since the start of the program show tremendous improvement in education and compliance with completion of individual AAPs before discharge.