The COPD Program at National Jewish Health offers comprehensive and individualized evaluation, treatment, rehabilitation, and education for patients at all stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) Our unique, multi-specialty approach is designed to evaluate the full scope of medical and non-medical aspects of your patient's COPD in a short period of time. This focus enables our team of physicians and therapists to address education, compliance, nutrition, and rehabilitation-all potentially challenging issues in the primary care setting. Our goal is to return to you each and every patient with a personalized management plan and all the tools necessary to optimize their COPD care and quality of life.
Setting a New Standard of Care
The COPD Program Care Model is based on the collaboration of a dedicated team of COPD specialists. The program is customized to meet individual and family needs as your patients move through a series of outpatient appointments. The program generally the lasts 6-12 weeks for local patients and 8-10 days for out-of-state patients.
National Jewish Health COPD Program highlights include:
- Customized programs for local and out-of-state patients.
- Detailed evaluation to confirm a COPD diagnosis and determine type, severity and co-morbid conditions or complications.
- Specialized diagnostic testing including:
- Complete pulmonary function testing
- Spirometry (pre- and post-albuterol treatment)
- DLCO (Diffusion capacity)
- Exercise Tolerance (with or without an Arterial-line)
- Arterial Blood Gas (with pulse oximetry and walking)
- Multidisciplinary care team meets weekly to discuss each patient's status, progress and goals.
- Access to latest pharmacologic therapies, oxygen therapy and clinical research.
- Specialized alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency program.
- Evaluation for other smoking-related lung diseases.
- Formal pulmonary rehabilitation program and warm water therapy pool.
- Individual take-home management guide for every patient.
- Behavioral health, nutrition, and smoking cessation counseling.
- Evaluation for lung volume reduction surgery.
- Evaluation and treatment for sleep disorders.
- Evaluation for potential lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) and lung transplant.
