In October, the COPD Alliance launched a “COPD Prepared” campaign to encourage clinicians to take four easy STEPs to become COPD Prepared. The campaign, which coincides with November’s COPD Awareness Month, provides information to clinicians so they can prepare for the increasing number of patients at risk for COPD.
Clinicians will be asked to follow STEP as a framework for managing COPD patients.
The COPD Prepared campaign offers clinicians a number of free opportunities and tools. These include:
- Facebook Application—This application will be useful for both clinicians and patients. Patients can take the COPD Population Screener™ (COPD-PS) through Facebook, and the application also features a resource center for clinicians filled with documents and information about the STEP program and COPD. Clinicians and organizations will be able to add this application onto their own Facebook pages free of charge.
- Widget—Although it has the same functionality as the Facebook application, the widget is not limited to just Facebook. It can be placed on any Web site, blog, or other online medium. Clinicians may even place this widget on their own Web sites as a patient resource, enabling patients to take the COPD-PS and find out more information about COPD.
- COPD Prepared Button—Clinicians may place this button on their Web sites or blogs. Use it to demonstrate to patients that you are COPD Prepared and support the effort to fight the disease.
The campaign also features a new logo that signals the start of an ongoing effort to encourage medical professionals to learn how to become COPD Prepared.
“We wanted to do something to reach clinicians directly, and we’ve found it in COPD Prepared,” says COPD Alliance Chair Brian Carlin, MD, FCCP. “Our goal is to show clinicians how to become COPD Prepared and provide them with the resources they need to more effectively help their patients. The new logo signals this change, showing that valuable resources are now available to them.”
Take the first STEP to being "COPD Prepared" by downloading and using the COPD Alliance endorsed screener now.