Want to Get More Bang for Your Asthma Buck?

The Michigan Department of Community Health is seeking health care practices to adopt the Asthma Guideline Implementation Steps & Tools (GIST) materials starting Fall 2011. GIST contains simple tools to help clinicians make decisions based on the 2007 NAEPP asthma guidelines by incorporating these tools into their everyday practice. Each practice will implement the tools and then track their implementation progress for six months. In six months, one practice that used GIST doubled the number of patients with asthma action plans, and saw a 25% increase in number of patients with appropriate asthma prescriptions.

Benefits of participation

• Technical assistance from asthma experts to help them meet practice goals for asthma
• Financial incentives for participation ($2,000)
• Participation in on‐site learning sessions at start‐up and as needed
• Evaluation and implementation support throughout the pilot period
• Opportunities to learn more about state and local asthma resources

Participation Requirements

• Convene office and medical staff for short meeting with MDCH asthma program staff to discuss GIST implementation and evaluation.
• Provide baseline de‐identified summary data on measures below and agree to review and provide monthly data reports on these three measures.

• % of asthma patients with current asthma action plan

• % of asthma patients with assessment of asthma control at last office visit

• % of asthma patients with appropriate prescription of ICS

• Additional, optional measures such as ED visit and severity level data are welcome.

• Complete brief surveys regarding barriers and factors leading to successful implementation midway and at the end of the project.

Eligibility Criteria

• Must provide the name and contact information of a physician champion who will lead the practice in implementing best asthma practices as outlined in the GIST program.

• Must have capacity to incorporate GIST materials into current system, and track changes in asthma care.

• Must provide the name and contact information of an office staff champion who will help integrate GIST materials, provide data and act as liaison with MDCH.

• Must be able to implement GIST materials in practice system by October 31. Use GIST materials at all visits with diagnosed asthma patients/potential/new asthma patients for six months, November 1 to April 30, 2012.

• Must be able to track the 3 patient measures listed above.

Preference will be given to safety net practices and those in high asthma burden areas (Genesee, Ingham, Saginaw and Wayne Counties).

Want to learn more about this opportunity? Contact Tisa Vorce, Michigan Dept. of Community Health: VorceT@michigan.gov or 517.335.9463

Visit GetAsthmaHelp.org/GIST to see the materials and learn more about this program.