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Practical tools -- those are what the just-completed Asthma Learning Collaborative gave family physicians, says FP Kurtis Elward, M.D., of Charlottesville, Va., a faculty member for the project.
"We provided practical tools that every family physician could use in a busy practice where you are moving from one patient to another. We provided them with tools to create a framework of care in the office," says Elward. "We also gave participants the tools to track their own progress and get some good feedback on what they were providing. That kind of information is very difficult to get, and the tools for that are difficult to obtain."
Elward made a presentation on the collaborative at the National Conference on Asthma June 19 - 21 in Washington, D.C.
The collaborative was part of AAFP's Quality Initiative, which aims to improve the health status, outcomes and satisfaction of patients while enhancing the viability and vitality of family physicians' practices. The collaborative encouraged health professionals to implement practices and community strategies to significantly reduce asthma-related mortality and morbidity by the year 2010.
"Each team is committed to disseminating their experience in the collaborative and using the Chronic Care Model in their practice," says Christine Pullman, AAFP's manager of quality initiatives and the project manager for the collaborative. "The teams are sharing what they have learned at national conferences, such as AAFP's 2003 Scientific Assembly, and at state meetings and at the community level."
Barbara Yawn, M.D., of Rochester, Minn., a faculty member for the collaborative, chaired the National Conference on Asthma. She says it is significant that a family physician headed up the gathering, sponsored by HHS and NIH.
"When the NIH asked a family physician to chair, they were recognizing the importance of family practice in asthma care," says Yawn. "This conference said that what we're doing works. Instead of telling us what we needed, they were asking us what we needed. It's really different than anything they've done before."
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