Janice C. Simmons is the former editor of the Quality Letter for Healthcare Leaders, a monthly newsletter that focuses on industry issues, trends, and developments. She has more than twenty-five years of health care reporting and editing experience. Simmons recently reported on innovative steps that were taken by the medical community to improve health care for young asthmatic patients. She lives in Alexandria, VA.

Technical Reviewer: Marijo A. Miller Ratcliffe, A.R.N.P., M.N., is a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Pediatric Pulmonary Center at the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. She is the author of Asthma: Primary Care of Infants, Children, and Adolescents and What Parents of Children with Asthma Tell Us. A lecturer for the Department of Family and Child Nursing at the University of Washington's School of Nursing, Ratcliffe assists children and families with chronic illness and speaks on asthma systems of care for children. She is also a member of the American Lung Association of Washington. She lives in Seattle.