Asthma in a Decentralized Patient Population: Is Traditional Disease Management Enough?

This is a health services demonstration project that evaluates three methods of health care delivery for the management of individuals with symptoms of asthma. This study will evaluate the impact of a telephonic asthma disease management process, with and without a home intervention program, on preventing asthma-related morbidity through patient/family asthma education. The investigators' central thesis is that comprehensive clinical disease management protocols for the management of asthma will improve clinical outcomes; reduce fiscal resource consumption; and improve both patient satisfaction and patient quality of life. Additionally, individualized, in-home patient education and environmental assessment, when added to the telephonic protocol, will further improve these measures. However, incremental improvement will vary according to the population's access to care.