National Jewish to Provide Asthma Disease Management for Care1st Medi-Cal Patients
A successful pilot program has convinced Care1st Health Plan to extend and renew its relationship with National Jewish to provide asthma disease management services for its Medi-Cal members in Los Angeles County. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program.
"We decided to extend our original agreement with National Jewish, because preliminary data indicated that asthma patients in the program had increased their use of controller medications and reduced hospitalization," said Dr. Jorge Weingarten, Chief Medical Officer at Care1st.
The new two-year agreement will increase the number of patients with access to National Jewish's asthma disease management services and offer the program for a second year to patients who have completed Year 1.
The National Jewish program relies primarily on written materials and proactive phone calls, in both Spanish and English, to help asthma patients better understand and manage their asthma. Registered nurses evaluate the severity of patients' asthma, their knowledge of the disease, and their ability to manage an asthma episode. Then they help patients develop detailed plans to manage their disease and encourage good self-monitoring techniques. They will send patients a variety of educational materials and a peak flow monitor, if needed.
In addition, a 24/7 call center is available for incoming calls from patients who have questions or problems concerning their asthma. In order to help coordinate care with patients' primary care physicians, National Jewish works closely with the physician group in order to get participants on more optimal treatment plans.
National Jewish has been delivering asthma disease-management services since 1995, and has enrolled more than 20,000 patients throughout the nation. Several of the programs serve exclusively Medicaid patients.
Previous studies have shown that the National Jewish asthma disease management program can lead to significant reductions in both healthcare utilization and absenteeism. National Jewish has been named the top respiratory hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for six years running.
Care1st Health Plan serves 190,000 culturally and linguistically diverse people in Los Angeles County, CA. Care1st is committed to the provision of healthcare that is medically excellent, ethically driven and delivered in a patient centered environment that recognizes the positive relationship between health education, a culture of wellness, an emphasis on prevention and cost effective delivery of care.
