F.L.A.R.E. Plan: Emergency Department Asthma Discharge Instructions
Did you know?
- Among adults with asthma, 19%
seek care in the emergency department at least once a year.
- For children with asthma in
Medicaid: 34% use the emergency department for asthma care, only 15%
have a follow-up office visit within 30 days of a visit to
the emergency department for their asthma
- For children dying from asthma
where the death was considered preventable, they visit the
emergency department an average of 2 times in the year prior
to death.
- For adults, they visit the emergency
department an average of 6 times in the year prior to death.
The FLARE plan is a comprehensive and concise tool to help patients
receive discharge instructions based on the NAEPP Guidelines for asthma management.
- Follow up with your doctor
- Learn your medications
- Asthma is a chronic disease
- Respond to warning signs
- Emergency Care
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These uniform emergency department
discharge instructions may help reduce preventable emergency
visits and hospitalizations by saving time, presenting thorough
asthma educational messages, and by improving the quality of
care and quality of life by providing the asthma patients with
a plan of action until they can follow-up with their primary
care physician.
What do the instructions include?
The instructions include:
- A simple short-term asthma management plan to be used until
the patient sees their primary care provider
- A basic asthma information sheet designed to be a teaching
guide at discharge and for supplemental information once home.
Both are written at a sixth grade level.
Who is behind the FLARE Plan?
The Asthma Initiative of Michigan (AIM) organized a collaborative
group of asthma care experts, representing hospitals, health
plans, emergency department physicians, physician assistants,
nurses, respiratory therapists, asthma educators, and pulmonologists
to design standard emergency department instructions for asthma.
Use of the FLARE plan and the concept of standardized instructions
has won support from the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians,
the Society of Emergency Medicine Physician Assistants, the
Michigan chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and
the Michigan Thoracic Society.