The Pediatric and Adult Disease Management Program (PADM) at QueensCare Health Centers offers a comprehensive approach to managing asthma, allergies and other respiratory conditions. Our highly trained Community Health Workers (CHWs) meet with you and your family in your home to help you understand and control the symptoms of your child’s asthma; help identify things in your home environment that may make asthma worse; and help you reduce and modify environmental triggers of asthma; and connect patients to additional programs, services and resources. Our goal is to reduce and prevent expensive emergency room visits, hospitalization and missed school and workdays.
PADM Services
PATIENT EDUCATION
PADM CHWs meet one-on-one with you to learn about asthma, allergies, bronchitis and other respiratory conditions. We help you understand what asthma is, including how to recognize early asthma warning signs to prevent further exacerbation, the differences in medications and how to correctly use quick-relief and long-term control and prevention medications and corresponding asthma devices.We also provide case management and follow-up.
HOME ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT VISITS
PADM’s CHWs can help you identify general environmental triggers of asthma in your home and set goals to reduce them. Our home visits offer a comprehensive environmental assessment and trigger reduction education; goal-setting to reduce and eliminate triggers; and tenant rights advocacy, empowerment and assistance to reduce your child’s exposure to health hazards present in your home, including mold, vermin, cockroaches, and dust mites.
CASE MANAGEMENT AND FOLLOW-UP
PADM CHWs provide follow-up telephone calls to check on our patient’s asthma control, including asking questions to determine Asthma Action Plan control zones, method of medication and device use, medication refill needs and your general well-being. We also offer linkages with community-based organizations to help families overcome barriers and difficulties above and beyond asthma.
Keven’s Story
As part of the PADM Program, one of our CHWs conducted a home visit for patient Keven to fully understand his environment and to ascertain what factors might be contributing to Keven’s chronic asthma. READ MORE>>
What is Asthma?
Asthma is a chronic disease of the airways (bronchi) that carry air to the lungs. The airways of a person with asthma are extra sensitive to irritants and allergens called asthma “triggers”. The triggers cause the airways to become narrow; airway linings become irritated, swollen and inflamed. In most people with asthma, the airways are always irritated and inflamed, even when the person has no asthma symptoms. Symptoms of asthma such as cough, chest congestion or tightness, difficulty breathing and wheezing worsen when a person is exposed to substances such as dust and dust mites, cockroaches, mold, cigarette smoke and animal dander from cats and dogs. Although there is no cure for asthma, it can be controlled through medical treatment and management of environmental triggers.
In Los Angeles County, it is estimated that 14% of school-age children (in addition to children as young as a few months old) have asthma. According to research from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, in 2005, California’s children missed 1.9 million days of school and the state’s adult workers missed 2 million days of work due to asthma. Children living below the 200% federal poverty level are nearly twice as likely to visit the emergency room as children living above that poverty level. PADM is well placed in urban Los Angeles to offer a multi-pronged approach to asthma treatment and prevention.
Learn More About Asthma
CLICK HERE>> to find guides and resources to help control your child’s asthma.
Emma Nkwam, Ph.D.
DIRECTOR OF QUALITY & COMPLIANCE
950 S. Grand Ave.
2nd Floor South
Los Angeles, CA 90015
(323) 669-4346
enkwam@queenscare.org