COPD's Role in Respiratory Compromise

PERTH AMBOY, N.J. - June 27, 2018 - PRLog -- COPD is a tremendous healthcare burden in the U.S. and worldwide. Patients with COPD often suffer from respiratory compromise.

To better understand the key issues every patient and clinician should know about COPD, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is pleased to release a clinical education podcast with the Society of Hospital Medicine's COPD Team.

Experts from the Society of Hospital Medicine's COPD team on the clinical education podcast were:

• Dr Peter Lindenauer, MD, MSc, MHM, is Assistant Dean for Population Health, Director of the Institute for Healthcare Delivery and Population Science, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School – Baystate, and Professor of Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School;
• Dr. Valerie Press is Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago.
• Dr. Weijen Chang is a Med-Peds hospitalist, Chief of Pediatric Hospital Medicine and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate
• Dr. Joshua Labrin is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah; and
• Dr Richard Anthony Mularski is the Director of Northwest Permanente Research and Evaluation and a Senior Physician in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine at Kaiser Permanente Northwest in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Lindenauer, who is the SHM's COPD Team lead described the burden on our healthcare system from COPD:

This is a condition that leads to more than 700,000 hospitalizations each year in the US, and has gone back and forth between being the third and the fourth leading cause of death in our country. 

 The costs for caring for patients with COPD has been estimated at 50 billion dollars or thereabouts. And, largely, that is due to the costs associated with exacerbations of COPD.

For patients and their clinicians, one key takeaway from the podcast is the necessity of ensuring that respiratory inhalers are used correctly. As Dr. Press emphasized:

patients aren't always aware that they're not using their inhalers correctly and providers across the board often don't realize this, as well. We often, as physicians or nurse practitioners, write prescriptions and don't realize that patients aren't using their inhalers correctly and how tricky it can be to really get the medicine from the inhaler device into the lungs. 



To read a transcript of the podcast, please click here.

To listen to the podcast, please click here.


https://youtu.be/sF_Z_JDq55s

About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, to improve healthcare delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org.