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Michigan Asthma Resource Kit (MARK)
What is the Asthma Resource Kit?
The Asthma Resource Kit contains tools, resources, and
information for health care professionals who work with
people with asthma. The Resource Kit is divided into
three sections:
- A professional section that includes the most recent guidelines on asthma care, tools for
assessment and diagnosis, tips for working with patients
from various cultures, asthma action plans, and scientific resources and references.
- A patient section that includes patient
education materials, reproducible handouts.
- A local resources section with information
on local asthma coalitions and community services.
Click here to be
returned to the homepage of this website, and click on
your county to find local resources.
Who developed the Asthma Resource Kit?
The Resource Kit was developed by a
multidisciplinary committee within the Asthma Initiative
of Michigan (AIM), a collaborative effort involving
multiple partners across the state. Committee members
included physicians,
nurses, respiratory therapists, asthma educators, public
health professionals, and pharmacists.
Why was the Resource Kit developed?
Asthma continues to be a serious problem in Michigan:
- Over 860,000 people in Michigan have asthma, including
646,156 adults and 215,449 children.
- Between 1990 and 2000, there were 189,849
hospitalizations for asthma in Michigan, for a rate of
17.8 asthma hospitalizations per 10,000 population.
Primary care practitioners and
their office staff members are vital to the effort to
reduce this burden. The Kit was developed to assist
health care professionals in caring for persons with
asthma in accordance with nationally established
guidelines.
How can it be used to benefit my practice and my patients?
Routine primary care visits are an essential
part of asthma management. Asthma can be controlled and
those with asthma can enjoy a good quality of life with
proper diagnosis, treatment and patient education.
The Resource Kit is designed to be adaptable to your health care setting.
- Dividers separate the sections so that materials can either be kept in the binder or
transferred into a filing system--whichever is most useful to your current practice.
- Patient education handouts are printed on tabbed pages and formatted so that they can be easily
photocopied. The tabbed pages should be retained as the
original so that additional quality copies can continue
to be made for patients. You may want to place a pocket
folder behind each patient education page to house
copies or use the tabbed pages as dividers between extra
copies in a file system.
This Kit has been designed to save time for you and
your office staff. Using the Kit can improve
communication between patients and healthcare staff about asthma.
The Resource Kit is flexible—you and your staff can:
- deliver comprehensive asthma education to a newly diagnosed patient
- create "new asthma patient" take home packets for newly diagnosed patients
- choose the topic(s) that you want to emphasize in a follow-up visit
- mail topic specific education sheets to supplement telephone advice
- provide training for new or existing office staff members
Please share the Resource Kit
with your colleagues and others in your health care
setting. Be creative in how you use it and let us know
which of your ideas works best for you!
How can you get more information?
For more information on asthma,
the Asthma Initiative of Michigan, or the Asthma Resource Kit, please
send a message to:
info@GetAsthmaHelp.org |
