Sputum-guided Treatment With Comprehensive Care Management in COPD - A Randomized-controlled Trial

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung condition affecting 1 in 6 Canadians and does not have a cure. Flare-ups of COPD are the most common reason someone goes to hospital in Canada. This is made worse because within 30-days of having a flare-up, 1 in 5 patients will come back to hospital for the same problem. Flare-ups of COPD often have many causes and these are different person to person. Sometimes it is related to behaviours such as smoking or not using medicines properly. Other times, it is from lung inflammation. Education programs that help people learn about their disease and maintain healthy behaviours, and using phlegm to decide on which medicines will be useful, have been studied separately and appear to work, but many people still have flare-ups. To help fix this problem, we need to look carefully at each patient, to make sure they are on the right medicine b