Hi Carolyn,
I love the concept of asthma "boot camp"!
Are you familiar with the Ask Me 3 concept ( http://www.npsf.org/page/askme3 )? It is designed to help patients/families have a better understanding of their health condition; however, a slightly modified approach can also help providers assess the patient's current knowledge. We encourage all patients to "Ask Me 3" questions:
1. What is my main problem?
2. What do I need to do?
3. Why is it important for me to do this?
That being said, you can use a similar approach to assess the patient/family understanding of asthma by asking things like, "With your asthma, what do you think is the main problem?", "What do you need to do to take care of yourself?", etc.
I would also suggest that everyone who will be part of the boot camp team receive formal training in using the Teach Back method. There is an art to effectively integrating Teach Back into patient education and it is highly effective when it comes to ensuring that the patient or family truly understands what is being taught.
One final thought - since you are developing what sounds like an "inpatient boot camp" - I would consider limiting the amount of material that is covered to 2-3 "must haves". As you know - these patients/families are often exhausted on admission and they generally have a pretty short hospital stay. We have opted to focus our inpatient asthma education on 2 things:
1) Proper inhaler technique, 2) How to use your Asthma Action Plan (which really also encompasses controller/relievers, symptoms, etc).
We don't spend a lot of time on "potential" asthma triggers but will definitely talk about avoidance measures for known triggers. It's not that triggers are not important to us by any means. We learned over time that when we were teaching inpatients about a long list of possible triggers, and talking about inflammation vs. bronchoconstriction, teaching proper inhaler technique, going over an asthma action plan, giving them ideas on how to reduce exposure to indoor/outdoor allergens or irritants, etc... they remembered virtually nothing at outpatient follow-up a week or 2 later. That's why we limit inpatient education to just a couple of super-important key messages.
Look forward to hearing from others and from you as you develop the boot camp!
Mike
Mike Shoemaker MBA, RRT-NPS, AE-C
Manager, Respiratory Care Services & Pulmonary Rehab/Diagnostics
Site Coordinator - Asthmania Academy (ASME Certified)
AnMed Health Women's and Children's Hospital
2000 E. Greenville Street
Anderson, SC 29621
Phone (864) 512-4833 or (864) 512-6626