The department of health has so far implemented 2 LANs, one for managed care organizations including those working under Medicaid and Florida KidCare, and one for providers, including federally qualified health centers, community health centers, and rural health centers. In future funding years, LANs will be established for pharmacists, hospitals, and public housing groups to promote coverage for and utilization of comprehensive asthma control services.
LANs are carried out in partnership with the professional organizations and related umbrella organizations serving each sector. A minimum of 3 webinars will be offered each year for each LAN. They will promote active engagement and communication between partners as well as offer opportunities to share successes and troubleshooting tips. Online forums or other means of communication will also be established based on the needs of participants. Topics will be driven by participant interests and will include performance and quality improvement, public health/health care system linkages, use of decision support tools, use of electronic health records for care coordination, and other issues related to the provision and reimbursement for evidence-based, comprehensive asthma control services.
LAN facilitators and members will learn continuously from one another. Members can implement best practices for strategic collaboration learned from facilitators, while facilitators will become familiar with best practices for asthma care that can be disseminated within and beyond Florida.
The LAN for hospitals will cover improving emergency department asthma care. This may include performance and quality improvement strategies, systems-level linkages between public health and clinical care, provider decision support tools, use of electronic health records for care coordination, case management resources for continuous follow-up after discharge, and evidence-based approaches to medication dispensing and monitoring.
Conclusion
Promoting comprehensive, integrative asthma care within and beyond emergency departments will remain a top priority for the Florida Asthma Program. Our interdisciplinary team of program managers and external evaluators continues to explore additional strategies for creating transformational change in the quality and utilization of emergency care for Floridians of all ages who live with asthma.
Acknowledgements: I thank Ms. Kim Streit and other members of the Florida Hospital Association for their outstanding assistance in conceptualizing and implementing this evaluation project. I thank Ms. Julie Dudley for developing content for the collaborative learning webinars described herein, as well as proposing and operationalizing Florida’s Learning and Action Networks for asthma care. I thank Ms. Jamie Forrest for facilitating delivery and evaluation of the hospital learning webinars. I thank Dr. Brittny Wells for helping to develop the Learning and Action Networks initiative in conjunction with other programs, and facilitating continued collaboration with hospitals. I thank Dr. Asit Sarkar for coordinating the Asthma Friendly Homes Program in Miami-Dade, and for helping to bring this program to other Florida communities. I thank Dr. Henry Carretta for his partnership in conducting the preliminary evaluation survey, and for his assistance with planning evaluation of hospital care quality improvement activities for the current project cycle.
Corresponding author: Alexandra C.H. Nowakowski, PhD, MPH, FSU College of Medicine, Regional Campus – Orlando,50 E. Colonial Drive, Suite 200, Orlando, FL 32801.