Clinical Practice Guideline: Self-care Management for Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Summary The DNP project is a clinical practice guideline (CPG) quality improvement project to guide nurses in caring for patients admitted with chronic obstructive disease (COPD). The quality issue identified was an increased readmission rate for patients with COPD in the facility, of which knowledge and awareness remain extremely low. An annual target of 19.36% was set by the facility to track the readmission rate of patients with COPD, and according to statistics from the facility, from July 2021 to June 2022, the rate was 25.7%; from July 2022 to June 2023, the readmission rate increased to 26%, thus necessitating urgent intervention to curb the rate. The purpose of developing this guideline is to help guide nurses in providing information to improve self-care management for patients with COPD. I developed the guidelines based on current evidence-based information and followed the disease-specific education guide established by the project organization. Three experts evaluated the CPG to determine its quality and usability using the AGREE II questions document and recommended the guidelines for use in the facility. It is believed that appropriate management can result in symptom control, potentially slow the progression of the disease, reduce the frequency and severity of exacerbations, improve lung function, improve the patient’s quality of life, and reduce COPD-attributable costs (Hosseinzadeh & Shnaiget, 2019). Through this, the facility will meet its target readmission goal, and no funds will be lost to the Medicare and Medicaid readmission program. Furthermore, education on the self-management of COPD has been shown to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce hospital admissions. I recommend integrating the guidelines into the EPIC system so that nurses can easily access them.