IN THE NEWS

The National Asthma Educator Certification Board (NAECB) is pleased to announce the results of the election of three new board members and 2 re-elected board members for the 2007-2009 Board of Directors term. The following individuals were elected by ballot sent to over 1600 Certified Asthma Educators (AE-C®) in November and December 2006. The Board acknowledges and appreciates the participation of many of these certificants in the voting process. We are excited to welcome these new board members and look forward to their enthusiasm and new ideas for promoting excellence in asthma education.

TRACI D. ARNEY RN, MN, CFNP, AE-C

A Nurse Practitioner who has specialized in Pediatric Pulmonology currently works for a Children’s Hospital and has created a clinical pathway that encompasses controller medication utilization and asthma education by the staff to decrease readmission rate. This hospital admits over 450 children with asthma a year and sees an excess of 900 in the emergency room. The readmission rate was 12% within 6 months of the last visit. Now, for the last quarter we are at 3%. All that changed was encompassing chronic care into the acute care setting, including asthma education. Since the Children’s Hospital is part of a large system, I have also worked to disseminate these best practices to all several of our other facilities.

She has also been a very strong part of the Arizona Asthma Coalition, a statewide organization, as the Chair of the annual summit. This year we earned over $40,000 to be used next year in asthma awareness and educational activities.

LEROY M. GRAHAM JR MD, FCCP

Currently a board certified pediatric pulmonologist in private practice with Georgia Pediatric Pulmonology Associates, PC in Atlanta, GA, Dr. Graham is also an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA. He is a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and the current chair of the Patient Education Committee. He is a trustee of the CHEST foundation, the international philanthropic arm of the ACCP. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Lung Association of Georgia and its 1999 Medical Provider of the Year and its 2001 Board Member of the Year. He was the 2004 Georgia Child Advocate of the Year and the 2004 recipient the CDC/HPGE David Satcher Award for programming in the areas of health disparities.

He is the founder and current medical director of Not One More Life, Inc. (NOML). NOML partners with communities of faith to address the disparities in morbidity and mortality attributable to asthma and other lung diseases in the urban and minority community through a program of screening, patient education, referral and evolving case management. NOML embodies his passion for effective patient focused asthma education that empowers patients and their families to become active participants in their healthcare and thereby change outcomes in real time.

KRISTIN HOMZE, RN, MSN, AE-C

Kristen worked at Duke Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina for a few years in the Medical Intensive Care Unit, then returned to Massachusetts and focused on the American Lung Association (ALA). While at the ALA she got the chance to develop, implement, and evaluate many asthma education programs for both children and adults. This quickly convinced her that patient education was the key to asthma management. As an ALA employee, an even greater opportunity presented itself.

In 2004, she was elected to the NAECB Board of Directors. During the past couple of years, she have been on the Executive Committee, Admissions Committee, Public Relations and Marketing Committee, Research Committee and headed the Scholarship Committee. The Board has been able to accomplish great milestones in this time and she has grown both professionally and personally from this experience. Concurrently, she is a nurse at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in the Allergy Department and continues to enjoy working with asthmatic patients. She would like to continue to help further the NAECB’s goals and outcomes in order to improve the quality of life for asthmatic patients.

CHRISTINE ROSSI, CRT, BA, AE-C

Christine is currently the Community Asthma Health Educator / Respiratory Therapist at Southern Maine Medical Center, Biddeford, Maine. She has recently completed the first phase of becoming a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist in the state of Maine and was a presenter at the AARC in Las Vegas in December 2006. As the Community Asthma Health Educator/ Tobacco Treatment Specialist, she works with patients, families, schools, community organizations and primary care providers to educate and manage asthma in accordance with treatment and management guidelines established by the NHLBI. For the past 4 years, she has helped coordinate the AH! Asthma Camp in Winthrop, Maine. She is a Master of Science in Management, Healthcare Administration student and passionate about education. As a Certified Asthma Educator, she is committed to public awareness, policy, community interventions, professional education and awareness.

YVONNE M. WASILEWSKI BA, MA, MS PhD, MPH

Yvonne is a research scientist with the Center for Child and Family Policy, part of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. She is currently a member of the NAECB and chair of its research committee. Wasilewski's program of research has focused broadly on programs, systems and policies that promote health, prevent illness and enable low-income children and families to co-manage chronic illnesses such as asthma, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. Social cognitive theory, particularly the self-efficacy model, and empowerment theory have guided much of her research. She has participated in several large scale community-based demonstration and research evaluations that have resulted in increased self-management, decreased health care utilization, and improved quality of life of children and adults living with chronic illness.

One program, "Open Airways for Schools," has been designated a "national model environmental justice intervention" (CDC, 2004), and has reached over 100,000 elementary schoolchildren in the United States and abroad. Wasilewski's has two current areas of interest: 1) explore evidence-based approaches to link certified asthma educators to practitioners through insurers in North Carolina, and 2) test the feasibility of adapting a peer-led education model to improve the self-management behaviors of rural high school adolescents with asthma, a group with high morbidity and mortality. Dr. Wasilewski is co-recipient of NHLBI's National Asthma Health Education Research Award.