Blueprint for Successful COPD Early Detection Programs

The key to providing this type of early detection program is planning! Here are the four key elements:

  1. Pick a site and get appropriate approvals.
  2. Recruit experienced volunteers - RTs who do lung testing often in their work.
  3. Know who to test.
  4. Use reliable equipment - spirometers that display the information in a simple and easy-to-read manner and interface with a printer to provide printed results.
  5. Provide educational information to those you test.

Now for some details to help you:

Pick a site
If you are conducting early detection testing as part of another educational program, such as your state meeting, contact the hotel or meeting facility and offer to provide this to their employees for FREE! If they agree, ask for a contact person, one you can communicate with before, during, and after the event.

Pick a time and location that will ensure that you have the most traffic through your testing site. Lots of people doing a breathing test can be noisy! Pick an out-of-the-way location so you don't disrupt other business activities at your site. Try to determine how many people may show up to be tested.

Ask the site facilitators to provide a table, electrical outlet, and trash receptacles. Ask them to "advertise" for you on employee bulletin boards and other communication venues in the facility.

Recruit experienced volunteers
Use certified or registered therapists or pulmonary function technicians to do the actual tests. Involve students by having them help with sign-in, collecting data (such as height, weight, smoking history) and to help keep the event organized. Get your volunteers together at least once before testing day to make sure that they are familiar with the equipment and know how the early detection program is going to "flow" - how you will gather data, move people through the process, and provide printed results. Determine how you will communicate to those with abnormal test results, smokers with normal test results, and people who just cannot follow directions and do a good test.

Know who to test
Focus your screening efforts on those who are most likely to have abnormal lung function – those 45 and older who have a smoking history and those who tell you they have cough, sputum and/or shortness of breath. When test results are abnormal, be careful not to infer a diagnosis. You might want to say: “There are many reasons why you might have an abnormal test. Remember that you are in a high risk group because of your smoking history.”

For those who do not have risk factors and want to do the test anyway, describe the test as being “for education and demonstration purposes only.” Using this wording to describe the test will let them know that doing this type of test in a non-clinical setting should not be construed as being the same as a test done in the doctor’s office or other clinical setting. If the test result on a person who does not have known risk factors is abnormal, you might say: “You may not have given your best effort” or “You might have a cold or other infection in your lungs.”

Be sure to ask anyone with an abnormal result to share the printed test results with his or her doctor, as further testing is warranted. You may want to have your most experienced RT available for counseling those who have an abnormal test result or have lots of questions about the test, lung function or medication and treatment options.

Use reliable equipment
Determine which spirometers you are going to use based on experience, equipment reliability and availability. Make sure that the spirometers interface with printers - and have enough equipment to allow the test to be completed quickly and accurately. You should be able to explain the test, have the person do three good tests, print (remember to have plenty of paper!), and briefly explain the results within five minutes. Have an experienced RT available to spend more time explaining results to those who need it.

Ask equipment manufacturers to provide the equipment one week prior to the . You will need this time to make sure that all your volunteers are thoroughly familiar and comfortable with the device you have chosen.

Consider using spirometers that only display the FEV1, FEV6 (or FVC) and the ratio of those two numbers. Consult the National Lung Health Education Program (NLHEP) web site at www.nlhep.org for more information.

Provide educational materials
Doing this testing in a public place will afford you the opportunity to provide lots of educational materials to the people who visit your testing area. Suggested materials to hand out include the following:

  1. Information about who you are - your national organization, your state organization, your local resources (hospitals where your volunteers work, schools that have RT programs, etc.). Use this as an opportunity to market your group! The AARC web site also has lots to offer.
  2. Information on smoking - the health impact, early intervention, smoking cessation programs, and medications that are used to support the person trying to quit.
  3. Information on the National Lung Health Education Program (NLHEP). Visit NLHEP and contact Gretchen Lawrence at gl-lungs@swbell.net for brochures. The one for patients called "Save Your Breath, America!" is most appropriate for your audience.
  4. Information on the breathing test. Provide a handout that explains WHY this test is important to do, HOW this test is performed, WHEN to do this test (see criteria as outlined on page one and in the NLHEP web site), and WHAT to do if you have abnormal test results.
  5. Use the NLHEP motto: "Test Your Lungs. Know Your Numbers" along with the web sites for the AARC and NLHEP on the test results handout. Remember that those who do this test should share this information with their doctor (whether it is normal or abnormal) - and you want their doctor to know that the was provided by professionals associated with professional organizations!