Lars Morsø, Jeanne T Pedersen, Peter Qvist
Introduction: Rehabilitation of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is recommended on basis of solid evidence. However, implementation of guidelines for COPD rehabilitation has shown to be difficult and many patients are not referred to primary care rehabilitation.
Aim: This study aims to examine if existing webbased information is sufficient to support referral of patients to COPD rehabilitation programs and if available information reflects the deliverance of recommended COPD rehabilitation.
Methods: The region of Southern Denmark (RSD) was chosen as case for this study. We scrutinized all information on the website www.sundhed.dk related to services for COPD patients. We registered information on following items: 1) Referral procedure, 2) Target groups, 3) Content of programs, 4) Setting, 5) Timetable, 6) Logistics and 7) Waiting time. Subsequently, we contacted all municipalities to complement this information.
Results: According to information on the website, all 22 municipalities in RSD offered at least one COPD rehabilitation program. Complete information on referral procedure and target group was present in 15 and 4 cases respectively. Seventeen municipalities had no information on waiting time and/or timetable. Direct contact to municipalities supplemented the information but still important data were unavailable.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated variable and insufficient web-site information for COPD rehabilitation in municipalities. More focus on readily accessible information might support referrals and thereby implementation on rehabilitation guidelines.
