In the future, the American Lung Association hopes that not only will it have helped to provide a model for other Lung Centers in the state, but that it might offer coordination between Lung Centers. This and other foreseen benefits and roles of the American Lung Association include:

Providing statewide coordination for all Lung Center hospitals.
Providing standardized training for physician and hospital medical staff.
Providing standardized program and curricula for patients based on the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Guidelines.
Capturing statewide data.
Disseminating outcomes.
Placing Lung Center Coordinators in Indiana communities to market Lung Centers.
Reducing the health costs of managing chronic lung disease to employers, insurers and patients/families.
Increasing physician productivity and effectiveness and the compliance rate among patients.
Giving easy access to its patient disease management programs in rural and inner-city areas.
Linking the new Asthma Clinical Research Center (in the Indiana University School of Medicine) to Lung Centers around the state.
Lending its name and imprimatur to hospitals/clinics.

Eighteen sites for ALA-I Lung Centers have been identified in fourteen Indiana cities for future development. The annual budget for each Lung Center from a Lung Association perspective is $81,400, which includes costs for the personnel the Association provides, equipment, as well as all expenses for training and marketing. The Lung Association has begun work on a capital campaign to fund development of the Lung Centers with a goal of raising $2.8 million dollars. A marketing plan does, and will continue to assist, in the Center’s community visibility and medical networks.

ALA-I Lung Center

Marketing Plan

1. Promotional brochures for physicians and patients are completed. There is general agreement that the key to strong patient referral is wide acceptance by primary care physicians. The basic marketing message is that children and adults with chronic lung disease require:

Medical management
Drug therapy
Patient education

The American Lung Association of Indiana Lung Center works with the patient’s physician to achieve this education and build personal disease management skills. Knowledge is a powerful medicine©.

2. ALA-I staff will accompany pharmaceutical representatives on physician calls. (The emphasis will be on visiting primary care physicians.) The purpose is to introduce the Lung Center to physicians and give Briefing Breakfasts invitations to the physician’s support staff. Note: a disclaimer concerning the ALA non-endorsement of all drugs will be scripted and stated to physicians.

3. Briefing Breakfasts are designed to acquaint the physician’s medical and support staff with Lung Centers as well as future training sessions designed for them. The purpose of this training is to enhance physician productivity and achieve greater patient compliance.

4. The ALA-I will establish a local Oversight Committee and invite those physicians who have influence among their peers. The purpose of the Oversight Committee is to communicate the purpose of the Lung Center to the physician community and advise ALA-I on physician concerns and suggestions.

5. Feature articles are planned for The South Bend Tribune and will be submitted to every newspaper in a community targeted for a Lung Center.

6. Presentations will be offered to: Rotary, Kiwanis and other service clubs; senior citizen centers, churches, AARP meetings, bank senior clubs and other groups that address the needs of senior citizens; the general public with such topics as Asthma Basics for Adults, Living with COPD, and Pediatric Asthma -- What Parents Should Know.

7. Off-site programs are planned to capture the community’s attention and reach additional clients:

Athletes and Asthma Workshop, University of Notre Dame. It is estimated that 70% to 80% of teenagers who have asthma also have exercise induced asthma. The Lung Center will sponsor a 2-3 hour Saturday morning workshop and invite teen athletes, parents, coaches, and trainers. The marketing message will appeal to young athletes who desire to improve their athletic performance.
ALA-I Lung Center Corporate Clinics. It is anticipated that senior level corporate managers will not go to a Lung Center. ALA-I will therefore actively pursue the corporate/professional market and take Lung Centers directly to the work-site.

8. ALA-I will conduct a market analysis to determine the efficacy of the various advertising vehicles.

A November evaluation of the ALA-I Lung Center in South Bend should provide an idea of what the future of Lung Centers in Indiana will be. Until then, local staff of the Lung Association and Memorial continue to press on diligently. What’s the outlook for the Center? "I don’t know," said Stephanie McCune, "I think once we get the doctors to learn this [the Lung Center] is an aid to them, then I think we’ll make it." Dick Beall, after acknowledging the puzzle of trying to bring people in to the Lung Center says with determination, "We really and truly have to figure this thing out."

For more than a few patients, they already have. A mother who has visited the Center because of her toddler’s asthma, says that at the Lung Center, "They have the time to sit down and explain everything – things you would never get from a doctor simply because they don’t have the time. It was wonderful." She adds that both she and her husband have received information about their daughter’s asthma through the Center that’s helped them to understand and manage their child’s disease.

A fifty-nine year old asthma sufferer first visited the Lung Center in December of 1998, and has returned for several information and instruction sessions since. Although she was able to hold a job before going to the Center, many every day activities, like carrying groceries or doing laundry, were things she couldn’t do by herself. "I have come so far," she says, "In the beginning, you feel like you haven’t accomplished a whole lot. It takes time. But then, you start feeling like, ‘Oh, man, I’m doing something I haven’t been able to do before. They’re [Lung Center staff] really good. I have nothing but positive things to say about them. They are so many things I never thought about with asthma...It’s marvelous to know. Last year, I couldn’t even hold my grandchildren, because I couldn’t pick them up," she says, "Now I can." Holding grandchildren, grocery shopping, walking, breathing -- simple things that really define what ‘quality of life’ is all about. Stories like these show best what the ALA-I Lung Center is truly working for.