New Montefiore Einstein Study Aims to Modernize Asthma Medication Process
So Kids Can More Easily Access Medications at School
BRONX, N.Y., Oct. 30, 2025 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — A newly awarded National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant will enhance collaboration between primary care providers, patients, their caregivers, and New York City schools. Building on a five-year research project that increased primary care providers’ use of national asthma management guidelines, Marina Reznik, M.D., M.S., vice chair, Clinical and Community-Based Research, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and professor, Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is launching a new study to more seamlessly link clinicians, caregivers, and schools so children can receive guideline-based asthma care while they are at school.
Currently, for children to receive asthma medication in school, parents and providers must go through a multi-step process. This includes caregivers getting a medication administration form completed by their child’s primary care provider, taking the paper form home to complete it, and then bringing the form to school to be kept on file by the school nurse. Dr. Reznik’s prior research showed that less than one third of students have the completed documentation at school, limiting their ability to receive asthma care when they need it.
“We believe children with persistent or uncontrolled asthma would benefit from collaborative support from their family, their medical team, and their school,” said Dr. Reznik. “By streamlining the submission process for the medication administration paperwork and creating one system where the child’s caregiver and provider can access, complete the same documentation online, and then route it directly to the school, it will make it much easier for the child to receive asthma maintenance and rescue medications when they need them.”
In addition to the electronic system where caregivers will be able to easily access and complete the documentation – which will then be routed to the child’s school by the New York City Department of Education – children with asthma and their families will be supported by Asthma Outreach Workers. These workers will liaise between families, clinical teams, and schools, and provide telephone-based care coordination to ensure that medications are accessible to students both at school and at home. Asthma Outreach Workers will also help caregivers understand how to use the medications and support families who experience barriers to care, such as filling prescriptions.
Around 400 children aged 4 to 12-years-old with persistent or uncontrolled asthma will be enrolled from Montefiore Medical Group clinics. Clinicians and caregivers in half of the randomly assigned clinics will have access to the online portal to complete the documentation, so they can receive their asthma maintenance medications at school and families will receive support from the Asthma Outreach Workers. The other half of the clinics and children enrolled from these clinics will receive usual care where their provider gets prompts for guideline-based care while they are at their medical appointments. At the end of the study period, Dr. Reznik and her team will evaluate the data from the two groups to see if the intervention helped to improve outcomes, including children’s asthma control, caregiver quality of life, and school attendance.
“This new multi-million dollar grant is testament to the advances in asthma care that Dr. Reznik has implemented through many years of research collaboration with various community partners,” said Michael D. Cabana, M.D., M.P.H., physician-in-chief, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and The Michael I. Cohen, M.D., University Chair, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “We are delighted that her work can be expanded to benefit more children with asthma.”
The NIH grant is titled “Promoting Asthma Guidelines and Management through Technology-Based Intervention and Care Coordination in Clinics and Schools (PRAGMATIC-S)” (1R01HL181061-01).
About Montefiore Health System
Montefiore Health System is one of New York’s premier academic health systems. It is a recognized leader in providing exceptional quality and personalized, accountable care to approximately three million people in communities across the Bronx, Westchester, and the Hudson Valley. It comprises ten hospitals, including the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, and over two hundred outpatient ambulatory care sites. The advanced clinical and translational research at its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, directly informs patient care and improves outcomes. From the Montefiore-Einstein Centers of Excellence in cancer, cardiology and vascular care, pediatrics, and transplantation, to its preeminent school-based health program, Montefiore is a fully integrated healthcare delivery system providing coordinated, comprehensive care to patients and their families. For more information, please visit www.montefiore.org. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, or view us on Facebook and YouTube
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the nation’s premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2024-25 academic year, Einstein is home to 712 M.D. students, 226 Ph.D. students, 112 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 250 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2024, Einstein received more than $192 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in cancer, aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. For more information, please visit einsteinmed.edu, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and view us on YouTube.
SOURCE Montefiore Health System
