Management and treatment of childhood asthma is now easier to access thanks to 3 new referral pathways developed by community health organisations cohealth and DPV Health.
The pathways are part of the Community Asthma Program (CAP) developed in combination with North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network and funded by the Victorian Department of Health.
The CAP provides free asthma education and health assessment for children aged one to 17 with asthma or preschool asthma.
Referrals provide access to a specialist asthma educator, who will assist children and their families or carers to:
- understand and manage childhood asthma
- identify triggers and learn how to control them
- recognise mild, moderate, and severe signs of asthma
- demonstrate correct puffer and spacer use
- understand asthma medications
- develop a written asthma action plan
- learn asthma first aid
- talk to GP, school, or childcare
Two of the new pathways enable referrals from clinicians, including GPs, nurses, pharmacists and school welfare staff.
General practices using Best Practice medical software can find a referral form embedded therein.
If this is not accessible, the form is available as a pdf on cohealth’s CAP website page.
The third pathway allows self-referral from a child, parent or carer. It is available as an automatically addressed email on the same CAP website page.
For more details from cohealth, email CAP@cohealth.org.au
For more details from DPV Health email cap@dpvhealth.org.au
