COPD Alliance Campaign Helps Clinicians Take Four STEPs to Become "COPD Prepared"

NORTHBROOK, Ill., Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to encourage clinicians to be ready for COPD Awareness Month in November, the COPD Alliance (www.copd.org) has launched the "COPD Prepared" campaign.

An estimated 24 million Americans have chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), half of whom remain undiagnosed, and the disease is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. With this in mind, the primary goal of the campaign is to encourage clinicians to take four STEPs to become COPD Prepared, so they can properly screen, diagnose, educate, and provide care for those with COPD. The first step clinicians should take is to download the COPD Alliance-endorsed population screener.

As part of the campaign, traditional medical resources and modern technology were combined to develop a variety of free tools aimed at reaching the growing number of clinicians and vast number of patients who go online to find information and resources on COPD.

The following free COPD Prepared tools and information are now available to clinicians, facilities, and organizations committed to battling COPD:

• COPD Prepared Facebook Application—Serving as the cornerstone of the COPD Prepared campaign, a two-sided Facebook application brings COPD screening and information to more than 800 million active Facebook users.

On one side, patients can take the COPD Population Screener™ to assess their risk for COPD and find additional information on COPD.

The other side of the application, developed for clinicians, explains the four STEPs to becoming COPD Prepared and features resources and information, including a downloadable version of the COPD Population Screener. The application is also available for clinicians, organizations, and individuals to put on their own Facebook pages. People can access the application directly on Facebook and find more information on adding the application to their own Facebook pages by visiting http://copd.org/join-cause.

• COPD Prepared Web site Widget—The Web site widget has the same functionality as the Facebook application. However, the Web site widget moves beyond Facebook, requires no Facebook registration, and can be added to Web sites, blogs, and other online mediums by inserting simple script, found at http://copd.org/join-cause. This will allow clinicians and health-care facilities to offer the COPD Population Screener and other COPD information captured in the Web site widget directly to their patients online.
• COPD Prepared Button—To show their support in the fight against COPD and show they have taken the four STEPs to become COPD Prepared, clinicians, health-care facilities, and organizations can download a COPD Prepared button and place it on their online outlets.
• COPD Prepared Webinar—Clinicians can access a free, recorded webinar to learn the four STEPS to becoming COPD Prepared. The webinar content was formulated by the COPD Alliance and presented by fellow clinicians.

"We wanted to do something to reach clinicians directly, and we think we have found an effective means with COPD Prepared," says COPD Alliance chair Brian Carlin, MD, FCCP. "Not only are we encouraging and showing clinicians how to become COPD Prepared, but we also are providing them with a number of free tools and resources they can use themselves and with their patients."

The COPD Prepared campaign features a new logo and branding and will be the start of an ongoing effort to encourage clinicians to learn how to become COPD Prepared.

About COPD

COPD is a common lung disease characterized by dyspnea and wheezing. Patients with COPD have trouble pushing used air out of their lungs, making it difficult to take in healthy new air. COPD includes chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or both. The most common cause of COPD is cigarette smoking, a behavior clinicians can work to prevent and help patients overcome. Genetic factors and environmental and occupational elements may also cause COPD.

About the COPD Alliance

The COPD Alliance is a multisociety alliance of professional organizations and corporations that use a focused awareness and education campaign to bring about significant change in the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of patients who have COPD, a prevalent but preventable disease. The founding members of the COPD Alliance, which are the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, American Academy of Physician Assistants, American College of Chest Physicians, American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, and American College of Osteopathic Internists, represent 300,000 health-care professionals working in primary or secondary care. The COPD Alliance gratefully recognizes Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Pfizer Inc. for their support of this initiative. For more information about COPD and the COPD Alliance, visit www.COPD.org.    

Media Contact
Josh Reed
Allison & Partners
480.636-4751
[email protected]

SOURCE COPD Alliance