Methods

Admission to hospital for asthma is amarker of quality of primary care because it is avoidable with appropriate management and early treatment of acute episodes in the community.1–3 However, children and adults still present to hospi-tal with inadequate management of their asthma.4–6 We decided to examine variations in asthma admission rates in small areas of Victoria. Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) are voluntary alliances of primary care providers that cover two or three local government areas. Their main goals are to improve health outcomes from primary care services, and to appropri-ately reduce the preventable use of hospi-tal, medical and residential services