The Inner-City Asthma Intervention asthma counselor program: a collaborative model between physician and social worker to help empower families.
BACKGROUND
The Inner-City Asthma Intervention (ICAI) asthma counselor program was modeled after interventions proven to be effective by the National Cooperative Inner-City Asthma Study (NCICAS) with inner-city children with asthma. The objective of the ICAI program was to translate and implement the NCICAS intervention into the real-world setting.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the unique pairing of a master's degree-level social worker asthma counselor (AC) and physician program manager (PM) as they collaborate to implement a successful chronic disease intervention program.


METHODS
A case-study design was used to describe the asthma counselor program collaboration at our site. This information was supplemented by additional qualitative data from the final report submitted by the Alliance of Community Health Plans to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from questionnaire data and enrollment and retention data compiled by Wood et al.


RESULTS
A master's degree level trained social worker functioned as an AC and successfully collaborated with a physician PM to help combat one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. This is evident when evaluating administration, recruitment, education and system issues, and community outreach.


CONCLUSIONS
The AC/PM partnership is a blueprint of how a successful collaboration may be duplicated by future social worker-physician teams. An effective program needs to address administrative issues, patient recruitment, ongoing team education, patient retention, and community outreach. Practical examples of each element are described.
Rosen
Carolyn M
CM
Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York 10029, USA. Carolyn.rosen@msnyuhealth.org
Rodriguez
Laudy
L
D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D019090:Case Management; D002487:Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003376:Counseling; D006078:Government Programs / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D040541:Marketing; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010819:Physician's Role; D010820:Physicians; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012106:Research; D012947:Social Work; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States; D014504:Urban Health; D014505:Urban Population