Improving Asthma Care by Partnering With School Nurses to Bring Asthma Care Into the Inner-City Schools

This is a pilot study to improve the partnership between Cincinnati Children's Medical Center (CCHMC), Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), and Cincinnati Health Department (CHD) to reduce childhood asthma in the inner city schools of Cincinnati and CCHMC. We are calling this project "asthma-free schools" and bringing it to neighborhoods where the incidence of asthma is especially high. We have designed this study to work with school-based asthma care programs. Children with high-risk asthma will be asked to participate. "High-risk" will be defined as poorly controlled asthma, frequent school absences, and/or need for daily controller asthma medications. We will use a commercially available inhaler cap sensor to help track medication use and symptoms through a smartphone. The study visits will be done mostly at the school using telehealth technology similar to Skype.