New Study By Children's Health Fund & Columbia University Mailman School Of Public Health Finds 'Best Practice' Asthma Program Saves The U.S. Health Care System More Than $4500 A Year Per Child

COULD MEAN ENORMOUS SAVINGS IN HEALTH CARE COSTS FOR THE NINE MILLION U.S. CHILDREN LIVING WITH ASTHMA

Published in Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved

NEW YORK, May 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Children's Health Fund (CHF) and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health report in a newly published study, a savings of more than $4500 per child with asthma – or $11 saved for every one dollar spent – to the health care system with the use of a best-practice asthma intervention program in primary care for inner-city medically underserved children.

The findings are published in a special supplement published in May of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved .

The study found that treatment according to best-practice guidelines significantly reduces hospitalization and emergency room visits for asthma. In addition, severity of asthma symptoms was reduced, including night-time symptoms that disrupt a child's sleep and may interfere with school performance and also hospitalization and emergency room visits.  Use of 'best-practices' treatment protocols is a component of the "medical home" model – comprehensive, consistent, coordinated care – and that is why it is so important that children with asthma have access to a medical home.  

"In the wake of the passage of health care reform and a time of serious national economic duress, this study reinforces that providing comprehensive, high quality health care in the 'medical home' model is also the most economically sound in the long-term," said Irwin Redlener, M.D., president of the Children's Health Fund & c linical professor of population and family health and pediatrics at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health.  "In fact, there are over nine million children living with asthma in the United States including more than two million who are living in poverty. These children are at particularly high risk for hospitalization and emergency room visits that could be prevented with access to quality asthma care, potentially resulting in enormous savings to the health system."

The total annual cost of the implementation at CHF's New York program was $390,169 or $420 per asthma patient. The total annual savings attributable to clinical outcomes for this patient population was $4,202,813 or $4,525 per patient with asthma. Conservatively estimated savings exceeded cost of intervention by nearly 11 to 1. In this population the costs and therefore the savings were primarily realized by lower Medicaid expenditures.

Dr. Redlener continues, "If we ensure access to health care and 'best practice' asthma treatment for children, especially those at high risk, there is the potential to save the health care system billions of dollars."