Categories
Asthma Children CVD Health Promotion Healthy Child including NCMP & CDO Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease Self-Management

Community health workers as drivers of a successful community-based disease management drive

Peretz, PJ. et al. American Journal of Public Health, 2012; 102(8): 1443-1446

In 2005, local leaders in New York City developed the Washington Heights/Inwood Network for Asthma Program to address the burden of asthma in their community. Bilingual community health workers based in community organizations and the local hospital provided culturally appropriate education and support to families who needed help managing asthma. Families participating in the yearlong care coordination program
received comprehensive asthma education, home environmental assessments, trigger reduction strategies, and clinical and social referrals. Since 2006, 472 families have enrolled in the yearlong program. After 12 months, hospitalizations and emergency department visits decreased by more than 50%, and caregiver confidence in controlling the child’s asthma increased to nearly 100%. Key to the program’s success was the commitment and involvement of community partners from program inception to date.

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Categories
Asthma CVD Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease Value

NHS atlas of variation in healthcare for people with respiratory disease: reducing unwanted variation to increase value and improve quality

By NHS Right Care (September 2012)

In revealing the extent of variation in clinical activity and outcomes, the indicators presented in this new Atlas underline the substantial scope clinicians and commissioners have to improve outcomes by ensuring that all patients receive the quality of care that is delivered in the best-performing localities.

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Asthma CCGs Commissioning CVD Guidance Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease

Designing and commissioning services for adults with asthma

By Primary Care Commissioning (2012)

This guide sets out the fifteen points that good asthma services need to include, with detailed advice for commissioners and service developers together with examples of good practice.

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Categories
Asthma Community COPD CVD Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease Self-Management

Inhaler use technique and related interventions: an annotated bibliography

By London and South East Regional Medicines Information Service (August 2012)

This annotated bibliography with 194 references is based on searches of the National Electronic Library for Medicines (NeLM), Medline, Google Scholar and publishers’ websites. The use of inhaled therapy is of great importance in the treatment of asthma, COPD and other respiratory conditions. However, a substantial percentage of users of inhaler devices worldwide have been found to have inadequate technique or to make critical errors, which means that they do not obtain full benefit from their medication.  Despite attention by researchers and the introduction of new types of device, real life use of inhalers seems to have made little progress over the past thirty years.

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Categories
Asthma CVD Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease

Assessment of public health impact of work-related asthma

Jaakkola M.S. et al. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 2012; 12:22

Asthma is among the most common chronic diseases in working-aged populations and occupational exposures are important causal agents. Our aims were to evaluate the best methods to assess occurrence, public health impact, and burden to society related to occupational or work-related asthma and to achieve comparable estimates for different populations.

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Categories
Asthma COPD CVD Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease

An outcomes strategy for COPD and asthma

By The Department of Health (2012)

The NHS Companion Document to the Outcomes Strategy for COPD and Asthma sets out best practice for the NHS to achieve the relevant objectives from the Outcomes Strategy.

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Categories
Asthma CVD Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Oral Health Physical Activity Respiratory Disease

Physical training for asthma

By The Cochrane Library (2012)

People with asthma may show less tolerance to exercise due to worsening asthma symptoms during exercise or other reasons such as deconditioning, as a consequence of inactivity. Some may also restrict activities as per medical advice or family influence and this might result in reduced physical fitness. Physical training programs aim to improve physical fitness, neuromuscular coordination and self confidence. Subjectively, many people with asthma report that they are symptomatically better when fit, but results from trials have varied and have been difficult to compare because of different designs and training protocols. Also, as exercise can induce asthma, the safety of exercise programmes need to be considered

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