Michigan Asthma Resource Kit (MARK)

What is the Asthma Resource Kit?

The Asthma Resource Kit contains tools, resources, and information for health care professionals who work with people with asthma.   The Resource Kit is divided into three sections: 

1)      A professional section that includes the most recent guidelines on asthma care, tools for assessment and diagnosis, tips for working with patients from various cultures, asthma action plans, and scientific resources and references; Click here for PDFs of the pages in the professional section of the MARK.

2)      A patient section that includes patient education materials, reproducible handouts; Click here for PDFs of the pages in the patient section of the MARK.

3)      A local resources section with information on local asthma coalitions and community services.  Click here to be returned to the homepage of this website, and click on your county to find local resources.

      One of the ways the MARK will be evaluated is through a partnership with the Institute for Health Care Studies at Michigan State University. Click here to find out about this process and the tools we are using to track distribution. Click here to download a PDF of the distribution log.

Who developed the Asthma Resource Kit?

The Resource Kit was developed by a multidisciplinary committee within the Asthma Initiative of Michigan (AIM), a collaborative effort involving multiple partners across the state.  Committee members included physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, asthma educators, public health professionals, and pharmacists. 

Why was the Resource Kit developed?

Asthma continues to be a serious problem in Michigan:

·         Over 860,000 people in Michigan have asthma, including 646,156 adults and 215,449 children.

·         Between 1990 and 2000, there were 189,849 hospitalizations for asthma in Michigan, for a rate of 17.8 asthma hospitalizations per 10,000 population.

Primary care practitioners and their office staff members are vital to the effort to reduce this burden. The Kit was developed to assist health care professionals in caring for persons with asthma in accordance with nationally established guidelines.

How can it be used to benefit my practice and my patients?

Routine primary care visits are an essential part of asthma management. Asthma can be controlled and those with asthma can enjoy a good quality of life with proper diagnosis, treatment and patient education.

The Resource Kit is designed to be adaptable to your health care setting. 

·         Dividers separate the sections so that materials can either be kept in the binder or transferred into a filing system--whichever is most useful to your current practice. 

·         Patient education handouts are printed on tabbed pages and formatted so that they can be easily photocopied. The tabbed pages should be retained as the original so that additional quality copies can continue to be made for patients.  You may want to place a pocket folder behind each patient education page to house copies or use the tabbed pages as dividers between extra copies in a file system. 

This Kit has been designed to save time for you and your office staff. Using the Kit can improve communication between patients and healthcare staff about asthma.

The Resource Kit is flexible—you and your staff can:

·        deliver comprehensive asthma education to a newly diagnosed patient

·        create “new asthma patient” take home packets for newly diagnosed patients

·        choose the topic(s) that you want to emphasize in a follow-up visit

·        mail topic specific education sheets to supplement telephone advice

·        provide training for new or existing office staff members

Please share the Resource Kit with your colleagues and others in your health care setting.  Be creative in how you use it and let us know which of your ideas works best for you!

How can you get more information?

For more information on asthma, the Asthma Initiative of Michigan, or how to obtain additional copies of the Asthma Resource Kit, please call 1-866-EZLUNGS (1-866-395-8647), or E-mail: info@GetAsthmaHelp.org