Rural COPD E-Visit Study

More than 16 million Americans have COPD and millions more suffer from COPD but have not yet been diagnosed or treated1. COPD is now concentrated within rural communities and those who reside in rural areas as compared to those who reside in large metropolitan areas have both higher COPD incidence (8% vs. 5%) and higher COPD-related death rates (55 per 100,000 vs. 32 per 100,000)2. Telehealth strategies to implement evidence-based best practice for COPD may be particularly impactful among rural communities as such treatment modalities can extend the reach of traditional COPD prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies.

In light of the significant public health impact of COPD, the National Heart Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) issued a COPD National Action Plan in 2017. A key goal within this national action plan is to improve the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and management of COPD by improving the quality of care delivered across the health care continuum. Because COPD is most commonly caused by cigarette smoking, investigators focus work herein on COPD early detection among cigarette smokers and on leveraging telehealth to extend the reach of evidence-based smoking cessation treatment (i.e., medications and counseling for smoking cessation) for those at risk for COPD. This work will build upon and extend our team's ongoing efforts to develop a smoking cessation electronic visit (e-visit) that can be proactively delivered to all adult MUSC patients who have been identified via the electronic health record as cigarette smokers. E-visits are embedded into the most common electronic health record (EHR) systems (e.g., Epic, Allscripts, and others) and offer a secure platform through which patients can remotely supply providers with health information. Providers in turn can deliver personalized instructions and/or treatment to the patient. Herein, investigators will leverage this proactive, scalable platform to: 1) deliver smoking cessation treatment to adults at risk for COPD and 2) improve rates of COPD early detection and accurate diagnosis. The ultimate goal of this line of work is to improve the quality of care and associated outcomes among patients at risk for COPD. investigators focus specifically on residents of rural areas given considerably higher smoking prevalence in the most rural parts of South Carolina.