Asthma

The Practice Capacity Team assisted the Program Services Team with the development and implementation of the Practice Nurse Asthma Educators (PNAE) Project conducted under the MAHS program in 2007/08. 

The quarantined time as Asthma Practice Nurse (generally) one day per week, funded by  Murray-Plains produced numerous additional benefits to the Practices involved, in particular:

• an expansion of resources
• development of networks to include local Pharmacists and Community Health
• raising practice staff awareness
• developing practice processes
• building the team
• sourcing/developing/identifying suitable templates
• identifying asthma patients
• developing a plan on how to review patients

The first cohort of 3 Asthma Practice Nurses completed their three month secondment in December 2007 and a further 2 in June 2008.  The nurses attended the 3 day Asthma educator training at the Alfred Lung Health promotion centre in Melbourne and 2 days of orientation and support at the Division.

This provided the opportunity for 5 practices to benefit from having a local nurse trained and supported to work as an asthma nurse within their practice and saw services delivered to a total of over 100 patients during the secondment periods.  Murray-Plains continues to encourage the practices involved to ensure that the Asthma Practice Nurse becomes an even greater asset to the General Practice team as a vital member of the health care team in each local community.

An excellent example of how this has been put into practice in real life exists at the Rich River Health Group, Echuca.

For more information please contact Angela Boal or Brenda Fehring.