National Jewish to Manage Asthma Patients for Colorado Medicaid

Inan effort to control burgeoning Medicaid costs, the state of Colorado has contracted with National Jewish Medical and Research Center to provide disease management services for its Medicaid patients with asthma. The six-month pilot program is funded through direct donations to National Jewish from Novartis Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca.

The goal of the program is to establish ongoing relationships with patients that result in better understanding and management of the disease, and thus, lower costs. In addition to Colorado, National Jewish provides Medicaid recipients in California and Minnesota with asthma disease management services.

"Many Medicaid patients do not have ongoing or consistent relationships with their primary care providers and seek medical care only during a crisis," said David Tinkelman, Vice President of Health Initiatives at National Jewish. "We believe we can break this expensive cycle of crisis and care through consistent and repeated telephonic contact that teaches patients to better manage their asthma and to work more closely with their physicians."

The program relies primarily on a series of proactive phone calls by trained counselors who first evaluate a patient's disease severity and ability to identify and manage an asthma episode proactively. Counselors help patients develop an asthma self-management or action plan. Follow-up calls combine assessments of patients' health status and medication adherence with a variety of educational elements, including self-assessment strategies, peak flow and symptom monitoring, and medications.

Patients can call a counselor 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Counselors also communicate regularly with primary care physicians and case managers by faxing one-page summaries of each conversation with patients.

National Jewish began enrolling patients in November and hopes to complete enrollment in January.

U.S. News & World Report has named National Jewish Medical and Research Center the top respiratory hospital in the nation for five straight years. National Jewish has been delivering disease management services to thousands of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients since 1996.