IPCRG 2023 news summary

The strategy teams for our Change Programmes Asthma Right Care and COPD Right Care developed new documents asking ‘What does good quality asthma and COPD care look like’ from a patient perspective and how can clinicians provide it. These resources will guide our strategy going into 2024 as we describe the implications for learning and teaching primary care including a quality improvement approach. Also informing the strategies of our change programmes are the annual guidelines outlined by GINA and GOLD, for which our journal npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine has produced helpful summaries for primary care.

As our Change Programmes develop across the world, we have created a new search engine on our website to easily filter through our Right Care Resources to find ideas that you can build on in your own initiatives.

• What does good quality asthma care look like?
• What does good quality COPD care look like?
• GINA 2022: key recommendations for primary care
• GOLD 2023: highlights for primary care
• Right Care Resources

Asthma Right Care continued to roll out across the globe with new launches, initiatives, conferences and capacity-building exercises. We also held the ‘Making Right Care Easy’ summit with the support of AstraZeneca to explore the barriers and enablers of right care with future Asthma Right Care champions. 

Having held an implementation course in March 2023 for participants in Croatia, Greece, Malaysia, Norway, Thailand and Turkey we look forward to seeing the movement continue to grow in 2024!

• Launches: Bangladesh / North Macedonia
• Initiatives: Tunisia / Portugal & Brazil
• Conferences: Spain
• Teach the Teacher: images / summary
• Summit

IPCRG continues to extend academic learning into communities, developing global collaborative networks and promoting a culture of critical enquiry about the best ways to deliver respiratory care. Throughout 2023, we produced four new Desktop Helpers, a series of educational videos on inhaler technique, as well as a range of supplementary materials for our educational film on ‘How We Breathe’. Finally, we have expanded the range of e-learning programmes available to our network, with more to come in 2024.

• Desktop Helpers: achieving earlier diagnosis of COPD / quick guide to spirometry / the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ approach to diagnosing asthma / severe mental illness, tobacco dependence and COPD
• Inhaler technique & peak flow
• How We Breathe: translations, clips, behind-the-scenes
• E-Learning: primary care education on COVID-19 and respiratory disease / chronic respiratory diseases in primary care settings MOOC

As part of our commitment to achieving the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ that takes account of the economic, environmental and social impact of our personal and organisational actions, in April we launched the IPCRG Planetary Health Forum, an email discussion group in which colleagues with a shared interest in the impact of climate change on respiratory health can share resources, publications and expertise and discuss future education and research initiatives or funding bids. projectsupport [at] ipcrg [dot] org (subject: IPCRG%20Planetary%20Health%20Forum%20membership%20query) (Get in touch) if you would like to participate and we will introduce you to this growing discussion group.