First I would love to say, I love all of the conversation around asthma in the blogs. If you are not a current community member of our Asthma Roundtable, please join. We will be hosting some webinars as a group to keep up the discussion and problems we see across America.
We feel strongly that we shouldnt just discuss it at the Congress but more regularly. We are going to consider changing our name to something that we all agree on as a committee.
People still die from asthma. Respiratory Therapists have died from asthma. Asthma kills. What are we going to do to help change process and make a difference? When I work as a Respiratory Therapist, I always encounter patients that have asthma and they are mis managed.
They either only have a resuce inhaler or only have maintenance drug which they may not be told to take every day. What can we do to help people understand this chronic disease and help reduce deaths? This is what keeps me up at night. I am an asthmatic myself and a mother of an asthmatic. I run a support group for parents of asthmatics to help them understand when the doctor is too busy. I go to schools to educate the children and then the parents come in for sessions.
What can we do as a profession to help this chronic illness and still the number 1 reason kids miss school today?
Eileen Censullo RRT, MBA
Vice President American Heart Association
Quality and Systems Improvement
PHoenixville PA