Children's Hospital Colorado And University of Colorado Partner With CareDox To Take In-School Asthma Management Program Nationwide

NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Hospital Colorado, the University of Colorado School of Medicine at CU Anschutz Medical Campus, and CareDox today announced a new collaboration to scale the reach of the Hospital's proven in-school asthma management program. CareDox modeled this collaboration after the Hospital's "Building Bridges for Asthma Care Program," and is offering the new CareDox Asthma Care Management Program to the more than 7,100 K-12 schools where the company's student health record platform and wellness services are already deployed. By combining proven clinical protocols with widely deployed technology and wellness services operations, the three organizations are poised to dramatically improve outcomes for pediatric asthmatics across the country.

Currently, approximately six million children under the age of 18 have asthma.¹ It is the top reason for missed school, totalling nearly 14 million days each year. Socioeconomically disadvantaged children and minority children are disproportionately affected by asthma. In these two groups, asthma is more often left uncontrolled, leading not only to absenteeism, but also disrupted sleep, which negatively affects a child's ability to learn and perform at school.²

"Children's Hospital Colorado and CU School of Medicine providers created the Building Bridges for Asthma Care Program to address the risk of health disparities and asthma-related absenteeism, as well as its related impact on academic achievement for inner city students," said Robin Deterding, MD, director of the Breathing Institute at Children's Hospital Colorado,  medical director of the Hospital's Center for Innovation and professor of pulmonary medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the CU School of Medicine. "Building Bridges has proven that a school-centered asthma management program can have a positive impact on pediatric health and ultimately reduce asthma-related absenteeism within a school's population. Now by partnering with CareDox, we have the ability to drastically expand the program's footprint and reduce asthma-related absenteeism on a massive scale."

The Building Bridges for Asthma Care Program commenced in 2012 and is now deployed in 28 public elementary schools in Denver, Colo. and Hartford, Conn. The school program in Colorado was developed by Stanley Szefler, MD, director of the Pediatric Asthma Research Program at Children's Hospital Colorado and the CU School of Medicine. Throughout the school year, school nurses train their students on asthma management, inhaler technique and other clinical best practices, and the students' absenteeism, physical activity and asthma control levels are monitored by nurses and communicated to their parents and healthcare providers. In a study of the impact of the program published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, participants in the program experienced a 22 percent decrease in school absenteeism.³

"Schools are ideal environments to address pediatric asthma, given that children spend a large proportion of their day at school and may interact with school nurses more frequently than any other health care provider," said Hesky Kutscher, CEO of CareDox. "At the same time, school nurses are severely challenged by limited available time and resources to support the management of students with chronic diseases. So we're taking our expertise in deploying large-scale technology-enabled school wellness programs and applying them to asthma on a national level."

Like CareDox's existing school vaccination and annual wellness check programs, the CareDox Asthma Care Management Program will be offered to eligible students at no cost to the student, their parents or the school district. CareDox partners with public and private health insurance to support the program.

The CareDox Asthma Care Management program is already in use in the Clay County District Schools in Florida, where there are more than 3,700 students who are known to have asthma. In addition to those students, CareDox leveraged medical data that resides on their student records platform to identify 345 additional students who are eligible for the program that weren't already known to school nurses and health officials as asthmatic. In just three short months, CareDox has already implemented the proven Children's Hospital Colorado/CU School of Medicine protocols to qualify 1,201 students with asthma into the CareDox Asthma Management Program, 349 of which are eligible for CareDox's Expanded Care Program for severe uncontrolled asthma.

The CareDox Expanded Care Asthma Management Program includes four key components to address uncontrolled asthma among student populations:

• Technology-enabled identification of new enrollees: CareDox will leverage its student health record platform and enrollment processes for wellness services (flu and other vaccines, annual wellness checks) to screen for eligible asthma students.
• Children's Hospital Colorado/CU School of Medicine qualification process: Once possible enrollees are identified, CareDox applies methodology developed with the collaboration to further determine the student's asthma severity and care needs.
• Personalized enrollment: Upon qualification, CareDox's trained asthma program nurses contact parents directly, enrolling them via phone to ensure a 1:1 discussion tailored to the individual student's needs.
• In-school visits: CareDox's trained asthma professionals will visit with the students three times a year and partner with the school nurses to a) assess each student's asthma severity; b) coach the students on proper inhaler usage and educate them on environmental factors that exacerbate asthma; and c) document each student's condition and care.

For more information on CareDox, please visit www.caredox.com.

About CareDox
CareDox is the leader in pediatric healthcare technology and services aimed at transforming the most consistent health delivery system in the U.S.; K-12 public schools. The company's health records management technology houses more than 4.9 million student health records, and its unique, no-cost wellness services, including in-school flu vaccinations, are in operations in more than 7100 schools. The company was founded in 2014 and is based in New York City. To learn more about CareDox and how they work with schools and payers, please visit www.caredox.com.

About Children's Hospital Colorado
Children's Hospital Colorado is one of the nation's leading and most expansive pediatric healthcare systems with a mission to improve the health of children through patient care, education, research and advocacy. Founded in 1908 and recognized as a top ten children's hospital by U.S. News & World Report, Children's Colorado has established itself as a pioneer in the discovery of innovative and groundbreaking treatments that are shaping the future of pediatric healthcare worldwide. Children's Colorado offers a full spectrum of family-centered care at its urgent, emergency and specialty care locations throughout Colorado, including its location on the Anschutz Medical Campus, and across the region. Scheduled to open in spring 2019, the new Children's Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs will be the first pediatric-only hospital in southern Colorado. For more information, visit www.childrenscolorado.org, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Media Contacts
CareDox
[email protected]

Elizabeth Whitehead, Children's Hospital Colorado
Phone: 720-777-6388
Media Pager: 303-890-8314

¹ Zahran, H., Bailey, C., Damon, S., Garbe, P. and Breysse, P. (2018). Vital Signs: Asthma in Children — United States, 2001–2016. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6705e1. [Accessed 16 Feb. 2018]
² Meng Y-Y, Babey SH, Wolstein J. Asthma-related school absenteeism and school 591 concentration of low-income students in California. Prev Chronic Dis 2012; 9:110312. 592;  Akinbami LJ, Mooreman JE, Bailey C, Zahran HS, King M, Johnson CA, Liu X. 593 Trends in asthma prevalence, health care use, and mortality in the United States, 2001-594 2010. NCHS data brief, No. 94. Hyattsville: National Center for Health Statistics, 2012; 595 94:1-8 596; Mizan SS, Shendell DG, Rhoads GG. Absence, extended absence, and repeat 597 tardiness related to asthma status among elementary school children. J Asthma 2011; 598 48:228-234. 599;  Diette GB, Markson L, Skinner EA, Skinner EA, Nguyen TT, Gatt-Bergstrom P,  et al. 600 Nocturnal asthma in children affects school attendance, school performance, and 601 parents' work attendance. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2000;154:923-928. 602; Daniel LC, Boergers J, Kopel SJ, Koinis-Mitchell D. Missed sleep and asthma 603 morbidity in urban children. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2012; 109:41-46.
³ https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(18)31060-1/abstract

SOURCE CareDox

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