September 2002 - January 16, 2004

In response to HB 342, SB 616, and Rider 51 of HB 1 (General Appropriations Act) of the 77th Texas Legislature, HHSC has implemented a pediatric asthma management pilot for the Medicaid/CHIP populations across six sites in Texas.   These sites include: Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston, San Angelo, and El Paso.  The projected number of pilot enrollees is 450 (75 per site). Pediatric patients within the selected sites with a hospital or emergency room admission for an acute asthma condition will be potentially eligible for enrollment in the pilot. Intervention will include standardized multiple-stage patient and family asthma management education, distribution of best practice guidelines to providers, and care coordination.

The goals of the pilot were to demonstrate the effectiveness of separately reimbursed patient education in pediatric asthma management.  Outcome measures included reductions in: emergency room and inpatient hospital utilization, frequency of symptoms, and school absenteeism; along with increased knowledge of correct self-treatment and demonstration of the effectiveness of physician- led peer education regarding implementation of “best practices” in the selected sites.

Enter the Pediatric Asthma Pilot Resources Site