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Collaboration Helps Control Asthma

Richard L. Reece, MD

September 2005
Strategy

Asthma, the most common chronic illness among children, is one of the major reasons for emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and missed school days, especially among those younger than 15. Approximately 20% to 25% of all school absences due to chronic illness are related to asthma, which causes an estimated 14 million lost school days annually. Children with asthma whose sleep is routinely disrupted by nighttime wheezing and coughing, whose symptoms affect their ability to function during the day, and whose acute episodes cause frequent absenteeism are at-risk for poor academic performance.

“Unfortunately, too many children, families, and teachers regard health problems and functional status limitations due to asthma as normal, not as difficulties that can and should be overcome by managing asthma appropriately,” says Peter Harper, MD, MPH, of Smiley’s Clinic, University of Minnesota Physicians, in Minneapolis. “It is imperative to achieve effective asthma control for students with the disease in order for them to reach their full potential.”

Children are in school six hours a day, five days a week, and typically 180 days a year. “Since children spend so much time in school, school nurses are in a position to observe children with asthma in different ways than families and physicians,” says Charlotte Jensen, RN, LSN, AE-C, the asthma resource nurse for the Healthy Learners Asthma Initiative in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

Denise Herrmann, RN, CNP, LSN, AE-C, the pediatric nurse practitioner with the St. Paul Public Schools, agrees: “School nurses recognize and interpret symptoms that parents may not always understand and that physicians may not see during office visits.”

By communicating and coordinating, physicians and school nurses can help each other achieve their shared goal of effective asthma control for school-age children. “To manage any chronic disease, we ....

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