Establishing and delivering pulmonary rehabilitation in rural and remote settings: The opinions, attitudes and concerns of health care professionals

Abstract

Lack of health care professional staffing, knowledge and confidence were reported to be factors impacting the establishment and delivery of pulmonary rehabilitation. This study has facilitated a greater understanding of the issues surrounding the establishment and delivery of pulmonary rehabilitation in rural and remote settings. Further research is required to investigate the contribution of health professional training and associated factors to improving the availability and delivery of pulmonary rehabilitation in rural and remote settings.

Telerehabilitation versus traditional centre-based pulmonary rehabilitation for people with chronic respiratory disease: protocol for a randomised controlled trial

“…Telerehabilitation can be delivered any time and from any place, further extending access to patients who live away from metropolitan centres. By providing supervised exercise training in this way, pulmonary rehabilitation could be accessed in locations where specialist services would ordinarily be unavailable [ 64 ]. The remote supervision of exercise training in this telerehabilitation model is a key feature frequently unavailable in models of pulmonary rehabilitation not based in a healthcare setting.…”

Healthcare professionals’ perceptions of pulmonary rehabilitation as a management strategy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a critical interpretive synthesis

“…Lacked understanding: It became apparent that many healthcare professionals lacked knowledge and were unsure of what pulmonary rehabilitation involved [34,38,41,44,45,46,47,48]. This lack of confidence was consistent amongst practice nurses and GPs; "if we know what happens [in pulmonary rehabilitation] then we can sell it better" ([34], p. 284).…”

“…This emphasised other aspects may be prioritised, and highlighted a negativity towards the programme. Similarly, others perceived it would take an hour and a half to assess patient eligibility, and this competed with other duties [48]. Volume of work was also emphasised [34,40,45,50], with the paperwork and tests required to make a referral considered excessive [40,48].…”

Smart Vest for Respiratory Rate Monitoring of COPD Patients Based on Non-Contact Capacitive Sensing

“…The practice of individualized exercise has possibly been the most effective non-pharmacological intervention to improve the physical capacity, symptoms and health status in patients with COPD [ 4 ] and a reduction in healthcare utilization [ 5 ]. The difficulty of access for some patients to the training programs in ambulatory care [ 6 ] can be solved through supervised training programs at home [ 7 ], which can also serve as reinforcement in the long-term adherence of the patients.…”