Health and Wellness Alliance for Children
The Health and Wellness Alliance for Children was created by Children’s Health and represents a partnership of more than 60 community organizations – spanning health, education, government, nonprofits and the faith community – that are focused on improving the health and well-being of children in Dallas County.
The Alliance’s first clinical focus is on pediatric asthma – the top reason for Children's Health emergency department admissions. Asthma affects about 60,000 children in Dallas and carries an annual economic cost of $60 million. Childhood asthma is a serious chronic respiratory disease that leads to more trips to the emergency room, more hospitalizations, more missed school days for children and more missed work days for parents than any other single health issue affecting children in Dallas County.
The Alliance is using the collective impact model by uniting its partners around four main areas:
- Healthy Physical Environments
- Improved Access to Health Care
- High Quality Health Care
- Equipping Children and Families for Asthma Wellness
Developing a more consistent approach to asthma care means improving access to a regular primary care doctor or “medical home,” and helping families understand and manage known asthma triggers at home and in a child’s environment. This initiative targets several elements important to a child’s overall health, including health literacy, environmental allergens, public policy, disparity and access to care.
The Alliance will track its progress through three indicators for children in Dallas County:
- Pediatric hospitalizations due to asthma
- Emergency room visits due to asthma
- Average asthma control score for children with asthma