Health Policy Analysis Assignment

Executive summary/Introduction

The proposal that will be discussed in this Health Policy Analysis is called the IL- H.R. 136: Breath of Fresh Air Act.

Bill introduced to establish a grant program for nebulizers that extends out to secondary school and elementary school.

The purpose was to secure the grant program mentioned in the proposed bill. The bill explains the significant number of individuals who have asthma and related deaths and the bill is designed to address epidemic by securing the proposed grant program that will allow the use of the nebulizers to help improve health outcomes.

Asthma’s prevalence continues to grow nationwide: it is critical to be addressing the potential health hazard this can have on the community through funding of needed treatments.

My recommendation for action:

Support this proposed bill as by addressing the ongoing issue of asthma related deaths and exacerbations we will be lowering annual health care costs for the nation as well as potentially preventing treatable deaths such as the asthma related deaths.

I would recommend funding the bill through the federal government in hopes to reduce these associated costs and asthma related deaths..

(H.R. 136: Breath of Fresh Air Act , 2021)

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Problem Statement

With the prevalence and growth of asthma as well as asthma related deaths in addition to associated health care cost it is imperative to take action to help not only reduce these costs which often are associated with emergency room visits but also to reduce the asthma related deaths that are occurring.

Background

Asthma prevalence is higher in high income countries

Asthma begins in childhood quite often.

In a number of developed countries (Dharmage, Perret, & Custovic, 2019) discusses, since 1960’s there has been a sharp increase in asthma prevalence and even in low-income countries globally there still has been a statistically increase in asthma prevalence since the early twentieth century as well.

(Dharmage, Perret, & Custovic, 2019)

Background

Dr. Gennaro D’Amato a doctor in the division of respiratory and allergic diseases department of chest diseases in a highly specialized hospital in United States.

Over 300 publications related to asthma.

Suggest that absence of asthma action plans nationwide as well as under-prescription of preventor medication is of national concernment. He states there is a deficiency when it comes to the appropriate action needed to be taken during an acute respiratory crisis related to asthma nationwide. (D’Amato et al., 2016)

(D’Amato et al., 2016)

Background

Healthcare Access

(Enilari & Sinha, 2019) determined that trends suggest global asthma levels are increasing with 100 million new cases being anticipated within the next ten years, this was seen in study done by (Dharmage, Perret, & Custovic, 2019) as well.

Providing nebulizer treatments to the nations schools will help to increase healthcare access even if it is at the school.

Increasing availability of treatments is increasing availability of healthcare access.

(Enilari & Sinha, 2019)

Background

Healthcare Quality

The mortality rate of asthma still remains a global issue (Enilari & Sinha, 2019) notes and specifically to the U.S. as well that needs to be addressed and that causes thousands of lives lost per year that are entirely preventable.

No improvements in mortality rates for asthma have been observed within the last decade.

Healthcare quality will be positively impacted:

Allowing for available treatments when necessary

Will help to prevent exacerbations that are currently suspected of occurring

(Enilari & Sinha, 2019) ; (Naja, Permaul, & Phipatanakul, 2018)

Background

Health Care Cost

The cost of asthma care has increasing implications in health care expenditures (Nunes, Pereira, & Almeida, 2017).

Leads to as many emergency room and hospital visits per year as two million each of which cost an estimated $1,500 per visit. Many of these trips could be prevented with proper knowledge and accessibility of proper treatment.

Poor asthma control leads to higher levels of hospitalization and directly proportionate to the direct costs associated with asthma care but work and school loss accounted for the greatest percentage of indirect costs that are associated with asthma care.

Health Care cost decreased:

Due to decreased exacerbations, hospital and ER visits will also decrease plummeting these associated costs

With less flare ups and exacerbations less school will be missed, less medications may have to be taken, etc.

All factors considered in relation to this have implications in the decreased health care cost

(Nunes, Pereira, & Almeida, 2017)

Landscape

Health Policy Analysis Assignment

The first interest group that will potentially support this proposal would be the caregivers of the children with asthma:

Typically have uncontrolled bouts of asthma leading to:

ER visits

High healthcare costs

Poor child health

This group will support this bill to not only lower their potential overall healthcare cost annually through decreased hospital admission, but as well as allowed the children to live healthier lives by providing necessary treatment when it is needed.

Landscape

The second interest group would be the emergency department nurses:

Interest group that will support this bill as this group is able to see:

High admission rates for asthma exacerbations that are currently ongoing and rising

Associated healthcare costs with these needless admissions

This interest group also has an interest in:

Wanting the population to be healthier as a whole

To keep the emergency room census decreased for those with unpreventable life-threatening illnesses or diseases.

Landscape

The third interest group would be outpatient clinicians:

Also affected by the increasing asthma prevalence and exacerbation rates that are occurring nationwide.

This group is affected similarly as the emergency department group is and will have similar motivations:

Interest group that will support this bill as this group is able to see:

High admission rates for asthma exacerbations that are currently ongoing and rising

Associated healthcare costs with these needless admissions

Landscape

Interest groups that will be opposing this bill:

Those that may potentially be at liability to help pay for this proposal

The recommendation is to get federal funding

Perhaps interest groups tied to those federal funds would be interesting in opposing this issue as to afford more resources for their own causes and needs.

Option 1

Utilization of asthma action plans nationwide could help to provide the framework for standardized nebulizer treatments:

An asset related to this option is the implementation of action plans for asthma related health incidences will not only strengthen the likelihood of adopting this proposal but also it will most likely serve as a general purpose to help decrease asthma related deaths nationwide.

A negative aspect that comes from this particular option is the amount of work and unlikelihood of actually reforming the current standards of asthma action plans that the nation has undergone, currently there is no movement to start this reform and this is likely the biggest con this option will face.

Option 2

Providing upstream thinking and actions when it comes to asthma prevention as a nation:

This mental shift may help to influence the legislative process moving forward in regards to this proposal.

A major benefit of this particular option would be that upstream thinking would help to prevent these high associated health care costs as well as in general allowing for a healthier national population.

Another benefit is there is no education required necessarily, just a change in the way things are thought about and addressed.

A major negative aspect of this option is changing the current stigma behind the view of the severity of asthma, as this is viewed as a less severe disease then many and due to this there is a lack of interest in providing efforts in upstream thinking.

Health Policy Analysis Assignment

Option 3

Educating the public and the health care community specifically on the increase in prevalence of this disease and its related deaths:

A major benefit of adopting this option is there is the possibility to provide upstream thinking, education as well as potentially impacting the future of the national asthma action plans.

Education can take place and increase one’s knowledge without requiring any kind of prerequisite as stated and this is a major benefit of this option

A negative aspect of this option that is to be reviewed would be obtaining platforms that allow for this information to be effectively spread throughout the public in order to help legitimize this proposal as well as in general just providing good educating on this epidemic.

Recommendation

Educating the public and the health care community specifically on the increase in prevalence of this disease and its related deaths is the option that I personally would recommend for this policy:

Option preferred due to fact there is required action to be taken first prior to the options being able to be rolled out.

A major benefit of adopting this option is there is the possibility to provide upstream thinking, education as well as potentially impacting the future of the national asthma action plans.

Due to these reasons for all intents and purposes this option would be the easiest to mobilize and to facilitate.

Recommendation

By spreading education and information to the school community we can help to impact when the disease is caught and how quickly steps can be taken to help prevent any further exacerbations as well as potentially helping to catch any new cases of occurrences that may happen to any undiagnosed students.

It is crucial to understand that when educational actions are taken against and for asthma there is a raised level of knowledge of the disease among the participants in schools.

With school education it is proposed that issues, such as external health causes, violence, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and healthy eating, in addition to illnesses of public interest, make up the general content as to what is beneficial to be discussed and how asthma can be best avoided, to minimize the risk.

(Coelho et al., 2016)

References

Carvalho, C., Barretto C., Souza-Machado, C., & Souza-Machado, A. (2016). The Impacts of Educational Asthma Interventions in Schools: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Canadian respiratory journal, 2016, 8476206. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/8476206

D’Amato, G., Vitale, C., Molino, A., Stanziola, A., Sanduzzi, A., Vatrella, A., Mormile, M., Lanza, M., Calabrese, G., Antonicelli, L., & D’Amato, M. (2016). Asthma-related deaths. Multidisciplinary respiratory medicine, 11, 37. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40248-016-0073- 0 Health Policy Analysis Assignment