When it comes to activities from singing in the choir to playing ball, children with asthma can be sidelined by a lack of information.
The University of Maryland Hospital for Children this week became the first East Coast institution to receive a certificate of distinction from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations for its treatment of children with asthma.
The Hospital for Children tries to ensure everyone who helps a child ? from their doctor, to their respiratory therapist, to the nurse who explains how to use an inhaler ? uses the same educational materials to emphasize these facts and avoid confusion.
“Everybody reads off the same script and it makes it that much more effective,” said Dr. Keyvan Rafei, director of the Hospital for Children?s Asthma Steering Committee. “The vast majority of patients and parents of children who have asthma don?t realize some of the basic things they need to know to manage asthma.”
Twenty percent of Baltimore school children have asthma, causing them to miss 640,000 days of school each year, according to information provided by the university. Children with asthma are three times as likely to miss school as children without asthma. Symptoms of asthma include trouble breathing, shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing.
“Children with asthma require consistent, ongoing expert care and education to manage their disease,” said hospital director Dr. Steven Czinn in a statement. “The JCAHO Disease-Specific Certification obtained by the pediatric asthma program is evidence of our commitment to providing the highest quality patient care to our children.”
Committee certification followed analysis of patient treatment data, site visits and interviews with staff and patients, and has been awarded to 10 hospitals and health care organizations in the nation, according to the release.
Despite advances in treatment for asthma, more and more people develop the chronic illness, Rafei said.
Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks asthma as the third-greatest cause of hospitalization among children under 15. The number of children dying from asthma increased almost 300 percent in the last decades of the 20th century.
