Foreword

Asthma Care Quality Improvement: A Resource Guide for State Action and its accompanying Workbook were developed by Thomson Medstat and The Council of State Governments for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as learning tools for all State officials who want to improve the quality of health care for people with asthma in their States.

Using State-level data on asthma care, this Resource Guide is designed to help States assess the quality of care in their States and fashion quality improvement strategies suited to State conditions. The States mentioned in this Resource Guide gave permission to use their data for illustrative and comparative purposes so that others could learn by their examples.

Many people for whom these learning tools were intended—State elected and appointed leaders as well as officials in State health departments, Asthma Prevention and Control Programs, Medicaid offices, and elsewhere—provided comments and feedback throughout the development and drafting process. From this process, we learned that they intend to use the Resource Guide and Workbook in many different ways:

• To assess their current structure and status.
• To create new quality improvement programs.
• To build on existing programs.
• To orient new staff.
• To share with their partners such as the American Lung Association.

The Resource Guide and its complementary Workbook can serve as tools for those who work on quality improvement to use in sharing their expertise, ideas, knowledge, and solutions. The various modules are intended for different users. Senior leaders, for example, may want to focus on making the case for asthma quality improvement, incorporating a State-led framework into their improvement strategy, and taking action; program staff need to provide the measures and data necessary to implement the quality improvement plan. The goal is that everyone work as a team and, thereby, improve the quality of asthma care in their State.

If you have any comments or questions on this Resource Guide, please contact AHRQ's Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850 (https://info.ahrq.gov).

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