Participate in Asthma Awareness Month!
Each May, thousands of organizations across the U.S. join together for Asthma Awareness Month (AAM) in an effort to increase public awareness about the nation’s asthma epidemic and to take action to get asthma under control in communities nationwide. Asthma affects almost 25 million people of all ages and races in the U.S.; however, public awareness of common asthma triggers and effective asthma management strategies remains limited. Scroll down to learn how you can promote your program's Asthma Awareness Month activities on AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org.
Browse AAM Events
Check out the Events Calendar and use the widget on the right hand side of the page to search for AAM events in your community!
Join the national effort in promoting Asthma Awareness. Put this widget on your Web page. Click here for the code!
Identify Partners in Your Community
Search the Community Program Profiles on AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org to find programs in your area to partner with and host events. Promote your events by posting them on the Events Calendar!
Find and Share Resources
Search the Resource Bank to inform your program’s work. The Resource Bank has everything from checklists and asthma action plans to education and outreach materials and community health worker tools.
To search for what you need, use the advanced search feature:
- Visit the Resource Bank.
- Click on the “show advanced search” button.
- Check the boxes under “Resource Category,” “Resource Type,” “Language,” “Literacy Level,” and “Target Audience” based on your resource needs.
- Click the “search” button at the bottom of the page.
- To start a new search, click the “start new search button.”
To share your program’s resources:
- Visit the Resource Bank.
- In the green box on the page, click the "add your resource" button.
- Complete the fields and upload your resource.
- Make sure to click the "save" button at the bottom of the page to add your resource.
- To add another resource, simply repeat steps 1-4 above.
Check out these Top Five Resources:
- Guide to Asthma Policy for Housing and Schools
American Lung Association - School Flag Program
EPA Asthma Team - Asthma Clinical Guidelines Flip Chart
AH! Asthma Health - Asthma Triggers Coloring Book
EPA Region 4 - Environmental Improvements for Children’s Asthma: The Impact on Symptom Burden and Return on Investment of a Home-Based Environmental Assessment and Modification Project
American Lung Association of Minnesota
Plan AAM Events
Download EPA’s Asthma Awareness Month Event Planning Kit, which features new ideas for outreach and awareness activities, tips for working with the media, success stories and much more.
Add AAM Events
Publicize your community’s AAM Event on the AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org Events Calendar. Make sure to designate it as an "Asthma Awareness Month" event so others can easily recognize that your event is part of this national effort.
Have Multiple Events?
Add each event separately to maximize your marketing impact. You’ll also be able to track how many people RSVP for each event.
Read and Share AAM Stories
After your event takes place, let other AsthmaCommunityNetwork.org members know how it went by writing a blog post. This is a quick, easy way to share your successes with the community. You can even upload pictures from your events! Your stories can also help others in planning their own successful events.
View Popular Videos, Podcasts and Webinars
Check out the Multimedia page to view videos and podcasts, and the Webinars page to watch popular webinars on a variety of asthma management topics.
Value Proposition
- What is a Value Proposition?
- Why Does My Asthma Program Need a Value Proposition?
- How Can I Develop My Program’s Value Proposition?
- How Can I Share My Value Proposition to Attract Support for My Program?
- Examples of Real Asthma Program’s Value Propositions
- How Can I Discuss and Learn More About Developing My Program’s Value Proposition?
What is a Value Proposition?
A value proposition is a statement of the benefits that a vendor promises to customers in return for payment. Great value propositions clearly describe tangible results such as decreased costs, higher quality and improved outcomes that customers can expect for their investment.
Example of a Powerful Value Proposition
For $250,000/year, my Asthma Program will cut by half asthma-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations for the 2,000 pediatric asthma patients in our service area and deliver $850,000/year in savings to the health care system.
Why Does My Asthma Program Need a Value Proposition?
Stated clearly and with conviction, a well-crafted value proposition is a powerful leadership tool for use in deal-making conversations with partners, funders, payers, and other potential supporters. It will help you emphasize the bold outcomes—the value—that your asthma program will deliver for a set price.
RIGHT VALUE PROPOSITION + RIGHT CONVERSATIONS = SUSTAINABILITY
How Can I Develop My Program’s Value Proposition?
Developing a clear and assertive value proposition requires that you know and are ready to share a few simple facts about your program:
Value Proposition Worksheet
Download a worksheet (DOC, 65KB) that will guide you through the steps to develop your value proposition.
THE PRICE – Ties your bold offer to a realistic request
Population you intend to serve X Program Cost per Person = PRICE of My Program per Year
Example:
8,000 children with asthma in my community X Program costs $40/child with asthma = Price is $320,000
THE POPULATION – Target population that you commit to serving
Population of Focus (e.g., pediatric, uninsured, severe asthma, etc.) X % of Target Population with Asthma = POPULATION I serve
Example
80,000 children in my community X Est. 10% with moderate-to-severe asthma = Population is 8,000 pediatric asthma patients
THE VALUE – Results that you are accountable for delivering
High Outcome VALUE(S) I AM AFTER: ______
Example:
10 pediatric ER visits annually per 1,000 pediatric asthma patients X 8,000 pediatric patients in my target population = 80 ER visits per year
80 ER visits per year X 50% reduction in ER visits my program will deliver = I will reduce pediatric ER visits by half to 40 per year
THE PROGRAM – Efforts you will manage to deliver the results you are after
NOTE: If your program has a logic model, the outputs in your logic model represent the efforts you are managing to deliver the results you are after.
Program Components Designed to Achieve My Target Results
- Program Intervention 1, 2, 3 and 4
- Program Management and Evaluation Components
Example: My Program will reduce ER visits by half by:
- Creating a registry to manage pediatric asthmatics
- Connecting clinical, school and emergency care sites through the registry
- Linking electronic medical records for all patients to the registry
- Deploying asthma educators to instruct providers on guidelines-based care
- Deploying asthma educators and medical social worker (MSW) to conduct home environmental assessments and asthma education to improve self-management and reduce environmental triggers
THE COST STRUCTURE – Program costs that drive the price
- Cost of Interventions 1, 2, 3 and 4
- Program Management Costs
- Program Evaluation Costs
Example: Deployment of registry = $60,000*
- Training clinical, school and ER-based registry users = $20,000
- Linking EMRs to registry (¼ IT FTE for 2 months) = $15,000
- Asthma educators to provider sites (1 FTE/year) = $72,000
- Educators and MSW to homes (1¼ FTE/year) = $100,000
- Program Management = $35,000
- Program Evaluation = $18,000
- TOTAL = $320,000
* In this example, the creation of the registry is a one-time cost, not a recurring cost. The program described here would make that fact clear to a potential investor
THE EVALUATION – Plan for managing for results and keeping commitments
- Tracking the outputs of your interventions
- Tracking your progress on the results you are after
- Tracking the costs of delivering your outcomes and capturing the cost-savings they deliver
Example: My program will implement an evaluation plan to:
- Track percentage of my target population in the registry
- Track the percentage of clinical, school and ER sites trained
- Track percentage of clinical sites that receive asthma care training
- Track percentage of families receiving in-home education
- Track ER visits for patients in the registry
- Capture portion of staff salaries paid from asthma program budget
- Capture cost of registry implementation and ongoing maintenance
- Partner with ERs, state Medicaid, and local payers to capture costs of ER visits in year 1 for target population and costs over time
What If I Don't Have All The Data For My Value Proposition?
You may not know exactly how many people are in your target population, how much an ER visit costs your local payers or the rate of asthma ER visits for your target population. Estimating data to support your value proposition is fine; just be clear with yourself and anyone you present to when your data references national averages. You may find the following sources of data useful when looking for national asthma data you can reference in your value proposition:
- CDC Fast Stats on Asthma
- MEPS Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (Department of Health and Human Services
- United States Census Bureau
- American Hospital Association
How Can I Share My Value Proposition to Attract Support for My Program?
When you know your value proposition, you have at the ready a powerful 60-second description of what your program costs and why it is worth funding. Having a clear and compelling value proposition prepares you to make bold requests for support from a wide variety of potential partners because you can offer a clear description of the value they will get in return for their support. Now is time to share that value proposition with everyone: your patients and clients, partners, supporters, local officials, funders, payers—anyone who is interested in asthma.
When you enter a deal-making conversation with your value proposition in-hand, consider your audience’s likely value preferences and emphasize how your program delivers on its particular interests.
| Examples of Audience Value Preference | |
|---|---|
| Potential Customer | Likely Value Preferences |
| Foundations | Investment, Build Program Sustainability |
| City Council, Mayor | Population results, Budget Control |
| Medicaid (State legislators, Governor) | Lower Costs |
| Insurance Companies | Cost Savings, HEDIS scores |
| Primary Care Providers (Doctors, Clinics) | Pay for Performance |
| Hospitals (Community Benefit) | Improved Population-Level Asthma Control |
| Hospitals (CFO) | Reduced ER visits, Lower Bad Debt from Un/underinsured |
| Local Corporations | Less Employee/Family Stress, Improved Productivity |
| Program Partners | Lower Community Asthma Costs |
Examples of Real Asthma Program’s Value Propositions
A group of successful community asthma programs, health care finance experts, leadership and management consultants, and EPA leaders came together in 2008 to identify and analyze compelling asthma program value propositions. The information provided here is the initial outcome of that work. As we learn more about how strong asthma programs develop and use value propositions to secure support to sustain and spread high quality asthma services, we will update this information and provide additional tools to support community asthma programs.
Many thanks for their time and commitment to Cambridge Health Alliance’s Planned Care Program, American Lung Association of Minnesota’s Partners for Asthma Action Program, Kaiser Permanente of Colorado’s Asthma Population Management Program, MaineHealth’s AH! Program, and the Monroe Plan’s Improving Asthma Care for Children Program.
See Cambridge Health Alliance (PPT, 2.7MB) and Partners for Asthma Action’s (PPT, 516KB) value propositions.
How Can I Discuss and Learn More About Developing My Program’s Value Proposition?
Use the Communities in Action Discussion Forums to post your questions, thoughts or ideas about the development of a bold program value proposition. Members of the EPA team that continues to study compelling asthma program value propositions will incorporate your comments into their work and respond to questions you have about developing your program's value proposition.
To join a Discussion Forum you must be a registered member of the Communities in Action Online Network. If you are already a member, all you have to do is log into the Network via the "Member Login" box at the top of any page prior to accessing the Discussion Forum thread.
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