The American Lung Association Asthma Educator Institute is a professional education course for frontline healthcare professionals, such as: nurses, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, physicians, physician assistants, pharmacists, other licensed or credentialed healthcare professionals, and educators with 1000+ direct hours of asthma education eligible to sit for the national asthma certification exam. Also, the course is a great refresher for AE-C's preparing for recertification.
With proper treatment, people with asthma can control their disease. When healthcare providers deliver asthma care based on the evidence-based asthma guidelines, patient outcomes improve.
The Asthma Educator Institute is an online course that prepares those who qualified to take the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC) examination and also for individuals who want to implement asthma guidelines-based care. The American Lung Association Asthma Educator Institute was developed in January of 2003 with experts in the field of asthma and it reflects the National Institute of Health, Expert Panel Report 3: Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma and the National Institutes of Health, 2020 Focused Updates to the Asthma Management Guidelines.
The curriculum covers the detailed content outline in the NBRC Candidate Handbook and includes case reviews, hands-on skills demonstration and practice. The course is delivered by asthma experts, including Certified Asthma Educators (AE-C), respiratory therapists, nurse practitioners, physicians, health educators and pharmacists.
Course Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, the participant will be able to:
- Discuss the pathophysiology of the asthma condition.
- Identify factors contributing to acute and chronic asthma.
- Describe patient and family assessments related to asthma care.
- Discuss steps in the development, implementation and evaluation of an asthma management plan.
- Describe medications used in asthma management.
- Observe and demonstrate selected procedures in asthma assessment and care.
- Identify behavioral and environmental modifications in the management of asthma.
- Discuss patient and family assessments related to educational needs.
- Describe organizational issues (program outcomes, referral & networking) in asthma care.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge volunteers of the American Lung Association that were involved in the development of the Asthma Educator Institute, organizations that continuously support this program, and clinical expert faculty that were involved in the 2021/2022 annual content review:
- Praveen Akuthota, MD
- Agnes Banquet, MD
- Molly Ekstrand, BPharm, BCACP, AE-C
- Darcy Ellefson, RRT, AE-C
- Debi Holloway RRT, MPH, AE-C, CTTS
- Katie Jett, DNP, MSN, FNP-BC, RN
- Sunil Kamath, MD
- Vinay Mehta, MD
- Timothy Morris, MD
- Donna Murphy, RRT
- Matthew Sharpe, MD, FAAP, FAAAAI
- Jamie Wooldridge, MD
All Nationwide Asthma Educator Institutes
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Page last updated: February 20, 2025
