$3.6 million awarded to Nemours to reduce asthma in kids

Wilmington, DE – On June 15, 2012 the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation announced that Nemours will receive $3.6 million as part of $1.9 billion in cooperative agreements being awarded to 107 organizations from nearly 3,000 applicants from across the nation. These funds are being awarded to implement projects in communities that will deliver better health, improved care and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), particularly those with the highest health care needs.

Key Facts

• Eleven percent of Delaware’s children are diagnosed with asthma; only five states in the country have higher percentages of children diagnosed with asthma.
• Delaware children under age four are twice as likely to be hospitalized with asthma as any other age group, and are four times as likely to have an asthma related hospitalization as adults.
• This project aims to reduce asthma-related emergency department visits among pediatric patients in Delaware by 50% and asthma-related hospitalization by 50% by 2015.
• With this funding, Nemours will launch a new phase of our Optimizing Health Outcomes for Children with asthma in Delaware project.
• This project will be a continuation of a process started in 2004, when Nemours broadened its mission from medical care to include health promotion and disease prevention.  To integrate medical care with community-based population health, Nemours has developed a unique population-based strategy, which will link pediatric primary care with a focused intervention on asthma.  This linkage will result in a new model of service delivery and health promotion in three communities in Delaware.
• Nemours will focus the work of this project on Medicaid beneficiaries currently served by Nemours’ pediatric practices in Dover (a growing rural/suburban area with a military base), Seaford (a rapidly growing rural area) and Jessup Street (an urban community in Wilmington, DE) and the population in six ZIP codes surrounding these sites.
• The project launches this summer and is funded for three years.

Quotes

“Right now, the United States has a generation of children who will likely, because of the toll of chronic diseases like asthma, potentially live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. Many of today’s leading health problems in children are preventable or controllable.”
–          Mary Kate Mouser, executive director of Nemours Health and Prevention Services

“This funding will help us widen the scope of pediatric primary care and focus on the ways in which our system can identify social factors and work with the community to provide family and patient-centered solutions.  By bringing medical homes and interventions into the community that link patients and families to the appropriate community-based services, it is a win-win for everyone.”
–          Kevin Sheahan, MD, chief of pediatrics at Nemours

“The underlying goals of the Affordable Care Act are to increase access to affordable, quality care by finding innovative ways to get better health outcomes for less money. This federal funding, made possible by the Affordable Care Act, will help Delaware communities and local government organizations to increase communication between patients and their caregivers, create healthier family and child care environments, expand and coordinate health care services, improve health outcomes and lower costs, in part by reducing unnecessary visits to the emergency room and hospital. I applaud the Administration’s efforts to support this innovative approach that delivers care and treatment to children with asthma in a convenient and cost-effective way. Programs like this are a critical part of our nation’s efforts to combat chronic diseases sooner rather than later, and I can think of no better institution to launch it than Delaware’s own A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, one of the leading children’s hospitals in our country. This funding is a win-win for Delaware –improving health outcomes for our state’s children and providing jobs for more people to deliver this critical health care.”
–          Senator Tom Carper (D- Del.)

“This funding will help give young Delawareans the ability to live healthier lives.  We want to keep our young people healthy so they will grow into healthy adults.   Nemours provides exceptional care and shares our state commitment to the health and well-being of our children, as we work to build a quality system of focused and managed healthcare in Delaware”
–          Governor Jack Markell- Delaware

About Nemours

Nemours (NAH-mors: rhymes with s’mores) is an internationally recognized children’s health system that owns and operates the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, along with major pediatric specialty clinics in Delaware, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 2012, it will open the full-service Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Florida.

Established as The Nemours Foundation through the legacy and philanthropy of Alfred I. du Pont, Nemours offers pediatric clinical care, research, education, advocacy and prevention programs to all families in the communities it serves. For more information, visit www.Nemours.org.

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