SAN ANTONIO (Nov. 13, 2014) — Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, commonly referred to as COPD, is a chronic lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe and usually worsens over time. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States and affects more than 13.5 million Americans.
With the goal of helping patients and their caregivers understand COPD and what they can do to help control the disease as well as assisting physicians, nurses and other health care providers to provide the best possible treatment, professors from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have created two different websites.
Animated COPD Patient website
The first website, Animated COPD Patient: An Animated Patient’s Guide to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, can be found at www.animatedcopdpatient.com. The content for the website, which is free to use, was created by Sandra G. Adams, M.D., and Antonio R. Anzueto, M.D., who are both professors of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine at the Health Science Center.
“The Animated COPD Patient website was designed to meet the educational needs of patients and caregivers affected by COPD,” Dr. Adams said. “One of our goals is to empower patients through effective education on COPD. This allows patients to be better partners with their health care providers. Better dialogue between patients and physicians leads to improved health outcomes.”
The website features brief videos on topics such as COPD symptoms, risk factors, complications, diagnosis, treatment and resources. Patients and their caregivers can review the information at their own leisure.
The Animated COPD Patient website was jointly provided by the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences at Eisenhower and Prime Medic, Inc., in collaboration with the Postgraduate Institute for Medicine. The website was funded by an unrestricted grant from Boehringer Ingelheim.
WipeCOPD website
A second website, WipeCOPD at www.wipediseases.org, was created by Dr. Adams through the Wipe Diseases Foundation in association with the UT Health Science Center. It is an interactive professional educational program on COPD for healthcare professionals. “Wipe” is an acronym for Web-based Interactive Professional Education. The program was developed with the help of an educational grant, titled the “GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Scholar Award in Respiratory Care,” from the Chest Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American College of Chest Physicians.
A year of unlimited access cost $100 for nurses, respiratory therapists, physician assistants, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. The subscription is $150 for physicians who also can get continuing education credit. Special pricing is available for groups, students and those who are not seeking continuing education credit. For more information, email info@wipediseases.org or call 210-382-3902.
“With proceeds from WipeCOPD, we will be able to create additional websites on other lung diseases. All funds generated from the site will enable us to continue to create web-based educational programs,” said Dr. Adams, who is president of the non-profit Wipe Diseases Foundation.
“Our overarching goal is to provide health care professionals with the tools needed to change their clinical practice and to improve outcomes of patients with COPD, asthma and other diseases,” she added.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 13 percent of academic institutions receiving National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 31,000 graduates. The $787.7 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.