The Importance of Increased Asthma Education

Abstract

The article by Clark et al.1 was very compelling to me on a personal level. I am a registered nurse at a children’s hospital in South Florida, and I work in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Unfortunately, asthma patients are very common on my unit and a large number of our patient population come from low-income families. We recently had an adolescent patient who died. He had an asthma exacerbation, but the patient had coded several times before arriving to the hospital and in the emergency room as well. The patient suffered a significantly devastating loss of brain function and was pronounced brain dead. I believe the saddest part of this whole story is the simple fact that it could have all been prevented with education and medication compliance. Asthma education is extremely important and mandatory to all asthma patients that are treated at our facility. The asthma action plan is an excellent tool and is thoroughly reviewed with each asthma patient and their family before discharge. Unfortunately, a lack of education and medication noncompliance is perhaps one of the greatest reasons why most of the children with asthma exacerbations end up in the PICU. As a bedside nurse, I realize the importance of asthma education among my patients and their families. The time that I spend with patients and their families on educating them about asthma could ultimately be the difference between life and death. As a nurse and mother, it warms my heart to read that a group of individuals have taken their time to form an asthma coalition, especially with low-income populations. Now, as a Florida Atlantic University Emerging Leader graduate student, I understand the dynamics involved in influencing health policy changes and I greatly appreciate the article by Clark et al.1 Over a decade, through policy and system changes, improvements were seen among known asthma patients. I commend the coalitions for successfully implementing more than 93 institutional, organizational, and public policy changes.1