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COPD Foundation jumps into COPD Awareness Month with two COPD Summits
November is COPD Awareness Month, and Nov. 17 is World COPD Day. This year’s theme for World COPD Day is “2010 – The Year of the Lung” and the focus is on patients asking doctors for a spirometry test, the simplest test to check on your lung function.
In addition to World COPD Day, the COPD Foundation is participating in two COPD Summits, aimed at creating COPD action plans. Only a comprehensive approach will help fight the burden of COPD, a premise for both events.
The Massachusetts COPD Summit, scheduled Nov. 9 in Waltham, will focus on creating a COPD Action Plan for the state.
It will bring together the COPD Foundation, health care and public health professionals, the business community and those living with the disease to collaborate and create a comprehensive document that will state the rationale and objectives for addressing COPD statewide. The Summit is also the first activity of the newly-formed Massachusetts COPD Coalition, which is committed to implementing the strategies that are recommended at the Summit.
The Southeast Regional COPD Summit will take place Nov. 15 in Atlanta, GA. This Summit is a bit different than the Massachusetts Summit. It takes a new approach by bringing together the states in the southeast region to identify common goals and form a regional collaborative to work on target initiatives.
States in the region that have already started their own COPD Coalitions will get a chance to share their experiences and showcase their achievements to the states which haven’t addressed COPD yet. There are eight states involved in the Summit and only three have active COPD Coalitions, demonstrating the need to spur state-level action.
The activities of the southeast regional collaborative will be determined by the afternoon’s series of interactive workshops, designed to present specific issues in COPD and discuss how to address them. Some of the topics will center around providing good COPD care, proper diagnosis strategies and exploring how the COPD community can learn from the experiences in the asthma community.
