Breathmobiles bring asthma care to neighborhoods across the Inland Empire
June 08--RIALTO -- The bench seat in the motor home is filled with patients and parents. So are chairs under a canopy outside the vehicle.
It's appointment morning for Arrowhead Regional Medical Center's Breathmobile No. 1 as it brings asthma treatment to neighborhoods across the San Bernardino and Inland valleys.
On Wednesday, this modernized version of the doctor making house calls was at Simpson Elementary School, one day after the school year ended in the Rialto Unified School District.
Implemented in 2007, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center now operates two mobile Breathmobiles that make house calls to schools and serve the neighborhoods around them.
Breathmobile No. 2 operates primarily in the High Desert, visiting schools in cities that include Hesperia, Victorville, Phelan and Trona.
Business is good, said Karen O'Cull, Arrowhead Regional's Breathmobile program.
Rains and cooler temperatures in late spring have created a "pollen storm," which is triggering asthma and nasal-breathing issues for many county residents, she said.
While the goal of the Breathmobile is to reduce emergency room visits due to asthma, O'Cull said she believes the region's population growth and the dramatic expansion of warehousing -- which brings with it more truck traffic and pollution -- are behind the surge of asthma distress cases seeking ER attention.
"We are seeing more asthma in the 5 and under age group, but we are also trying to catch asthma earlier," O'Cull said.
Dr. Lance Brown, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center and Children's Hospital, said, "It's hard to imagine an uptick in the already high volume of relatively sick children (displaying asthma-like symptoms)."
They show up in the ER in "very serious condition," he said.
A big driver in the increasing demand for Breathmobile services has been the long wait times for appointments with pulmonary disease specialists, O'Cull said.
Even before the Affordable Care Act, most children had access to health insurance, she said.
The issue is timely access to care, she said. As young patients get appointments some six to eight months out, their parents bring them to an ARMC Breathmobile to get stabilized while they wait for a provider in their health network, O'Cull said.
Among those visiting the Breathmobile on Wednesday were Elder Garcia, 12, who had been visiting emergency rooms off and on for several years prior to his treatments at the country-run Breathmobile about a year ago.
"I used to wake up at night, and I couldn't breathe," Elder said Wednesday.
His mother Hortencia Leyva said his face would turn purple from lack of oxygen, during some of those attacks.
Like many Breathmoble patients, the soon-to-be eighth-grade student at the district's Jehue Middle School in Colton, has been stabilized on an inhaled bronchodilator and an inhaled steroid.
The Breathmobile stop at Simpson Elementary was the location closest to the family home, Leyva said.
To schedule an appointment at the Breathmobile, call 909-498-6277.
Copyright 2015 - San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
