Improving Childhood Asthma Management Community of Practice - Session 3: Community asthma services

This community of practice aims to improve clinician confidence in managing childhood asthma, and foster collaboration between asthma care services in the inner west of Melbourne and the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH). This session will focus on community asthma services.

The community of practice will provide an opportunity for all asthma care providers managing children living in the inner west of Melbourne to come together to improve their clinical knowledge and confidence in the management of asthma in children. The sessions will also focus on building the confidence of clinicians to access resources and services to better link patients into the system.

The community of practice will consist of multidisciplinary clinicians from community, primary and tertiary care services with a shared purpose to improve the outcomes for children living with asthma in Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, and Wyndham. Members will play a key role in identifying current barriers and working together to develop local solutions to improve the care and delivery of service to children living with asthma in the inner west of Melbourne.

Opportunity will be provided for members to bring forth complex, de-identified case studies to be discussed within the group. This will also provide an opportunity for members to learn from a multidisciplinary team and better understand the role different care providers have as part of the asthma care team. Local data will also be shared to better understand how the system is performing, including sharing of hospital emergency admission rates of children with asthma from the local area. 

Improving Childhood Asthma Management Community of Practice sessions will be held on the second Wednesday of each month until June 2023 (excluding January). Topics to be covered in upcoming sessions include pre-school wheeze, asthma in 5–12-year-olds, severe asthma, community asthma services, and asthma medications. Clinical content will be covered by subject matter experts, including specialists from RCH.

If you would like to submit a de-identified case for discussion or suggest other topics for upcoming sessions, please email education@nwmphn.org.au

Facilitators

Dr Katherine Chen is a paediatrician and the clinical lead of the short stay unit at RCH. Katherine graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2002 and completed her PhD in 2018. In addition to her clinical expertise in acute paediatrics, Katherine is a clinician scientist fellow in the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Health Services and Economics group. Her research interest is in improving the care of children with asthma and wheeze. 

Dr Kirsty Tamis is originally from Scotland. She studied in Edinburgh and graduated in 2007. She was trained in hospital medicine with a focus on elderly care and then retrained in general practice. She is a member of the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners in UK and Australia and has a diploma in child health. She has an interest in all aspects of general practice but especially chronic disease prevention and management, child health and elderly care.

Speakers

Louise Hodda is a registered consultant pharmacist and coordinator of Asthma Australia’s Consumer Support Services team. Prior to this role within the organisation, she had extensive experience as an asthma educator delivering their consumer-centred evidence-based health information, education, and support services on 1800 ASTHMA and Asthma Australia Referral Services. Louise graduated as a pharmacist in 1987 at the University of Queensland and has since obtained a master of public health and certificate IV in training, assessment and evaluation. 

Naomi Oborne is a registered nurse and practice lead for cohealth’s Community Asthma Program. Naomi worked with Dr Lexi Frydenberg and Dr Amy Gray to produce the RCH asthma education videos. Naomi has postgraduate qualifications in paediatrics from the University of Melbourne, a professional certificate in allergy nursing from SA University, and a certificate IV in training and assessment. 

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• implement best practice management for asthma in children
• describe resources and local services available for children living with asthma
• identify collaborative, multidisciplinary opportunities to improve care for children living with asthma
• interpret local data and identify potential solutions to improve asthma care locally.