Danbury Hospital’s Asthma Management Program

Wins Statewide Community Service Award

DANBURY — Danbury Hospital is the recipient of the 2004 Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA) Community Service Award for its Pediatric Asthma Management Program developed by Gregory Dworkin, MD, of Newtown.

The award, sponsored jointly each year by CHA and the Department of Public Health (DPH), recognizes a Connecticut hospital that has made an outstanding contribution to the health of its community.

Established in 1996, Danbury Hospital’s Pediatric Asthma Management Program was developed by Dr Dworkin, chief of pediatric pulmonology, in response to an increase in the number of children in the hospital’s service area being diagnosed with asthma.

Danbury Hospital debuted the American Lung Association’s “Open Airways for Schools” (OAS) program in Connecticut to educate children, parents, school personnel, and pediatricians on asthma and medication management. This ongoing communications initiative keeps pediatricians continually updated, and provides education to school nurses on how to recognize the signs of asthma and how to educate parents and children to administer asthma medication and manage symptoms. The hospital also supplies schools with peak flow meters and inhalers.

The program, which is open to all the school districts and all the pediatricians in Danbury Hospital’s service area, has seen significant results in its eight years of operation. Asthma-related school absences are down 50 percent since the program started, while asthma-related hospital admissions and asthma-related emergency department visits declined by 72 percent and 25 percent respectively. In 2003, Danbury was ranked first in the state by DPH in providing care to children with asthma.

The program has operated in the Newtown schools since 1997.

“The success of the program can, in large part, be attributed to the collective commitment shown by pediatricians, educators, and parents in the hospital’s service area,” noted Dr Dworkin. “We would not have been able to achieve and sustain these remarkable results without this incredible spirit of collaboration by everyone involved.”