Guideline Adherence in Hospital Recruited and Population Based COPD Patients

A new study, the first of its kind done in Norway, analyzed whether people with COPD receive treatment consistent with GOLD recommendations, comparing those recently hospitalized with those not experiencing a hospitalization. Many studies have found that adherence to treatment guidelines is a challenge for people with COPD, often because they are not offered all available care. This study showed similar results.

Researchers found that patients recruited from hospitals were more likely to have care consistent with established guidelines; nearly 30% of those individuals from the hospital population had evidence of smoking cessation and support, pulmonary rehabilitation, and recommended medication therapy compared to just 6.7% of patients not in the hospital group. One factor in this disparity may be COPD severity since those not in a hospital setting generally had less severe cases of COPD and are managed in primary care. This emphasizes the need for improved care for people with all levels of COPD but even greater attention to those with milder levels of COPD severity. The results of this study confirmed the authors’ assertion that more training for physicians and other healthcare professionals should be a priority.

What does this mean for you and your practice?

• Can your staff easily identify people with COPD to assess immunization status and check inhaler technique when do medication reconciliation?


• Do those rooming your patients know how to review or observe inhaler technique? Remember that the COPD Pocket Consultant Guide (PCG) app, available in Android and iOS versions, has inhaler videos that your staff can use and you can have patients watch in your office or again at home.


• Do you have access to pulmonary rehabilitation? If not can local PT or OT programs provide exercise support?


• Using the PCG app can help guide appropriate medication management---check out the iOS and Android versions.