COPD - INSPIRED COPD Outreach Program

The INSPIRED COPD Outreach Program brings together a team of professionals to provide education and support to people with COPD and their families in their homes to help them cope better with COPD. (Watch a video about the program here).  This program includes:

• Home-based education according to your needs. This includes information about caring for your lungs, medications and use of your inhalers, home oxygen (if your doctor has prescribed it for you) and coping with your lung disease.
• Can include a “COPD Action Plan” to help manage COPD and its acute flare-ups so that you can treat infections early and avoid trips to the Emergency Department.
• Help with navigating the healthcare system and gaining access to programs/services that may be helpful to you.
• An opportunity to discuss advance care planning (.pdf) or (Watch Video).
• A contact number you can call between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on weekdays where you will be able to speak to a respiratory therapist if you have questions or concerns about your COPD.

There is no cost for participating in the INSPIRED Program.

Eligibility

You are eligible for The INSPIRED COPD Outreach Program if:

• You have a confirmed diagnosis of moderate to severe COPD. This needs to be confirmed by a spirometry test (a breathing test that measures lung function) that shows you have:
  • Severe COPD (which you probably do if you have COPD and are too breathless to leave the house, or get breathless after dressing/undressing) or:
  • Moderate COPD (which you probably do if you have COPD and stop for breath after 100 meters or walk slower than those in your age group and have to stop for breath when walking at your own pace
• You live in the Central Zone (Halifax, Dartmouth, Sackville, East Hants, Eastern Shore), Cumberland County, Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Lunenburg and Queens Counties, as well as Colchester and East Hants counties.
• You are community dwelling, which means you do not live in a nursing home or a long term care facility
• You are willing to be referred

And You have been:

• Admitted to hospital with a flare up of your COPD at least once in the past year.

If you live in Central Zone you may be eligible if you have gone to the Emergency Department more than once in the last year because of your COPD

*What zone am I in?

Learn More

• Watch this series of videos produced by Nova Scotia Health in cooperation with the Lung Association of Nova Scotia to learn more about the INSPIRED program.
• Watch Marjorie's story and see first hand how the INSPIRED program has changed her life.