Since welcoming the Australian Government’s $1.4m investment in lung health education and training in 2021, the Lung Learning Partnership led the design and launch of the Lung Learning Framework, a competency-based education and training framework for healthcare professionals (HCPs). The Lung Learning Hub was then created to serve as a home for curated resources.  

In 2023, the Lung Learning Partnership (Lung Foundation Australia, Asthma Australia and the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand) received new Federal funding under the Department of Health and Aged Care’s Quality Use of Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Pathology Program, enabling efforts to further improve lung health outcomes through education and training initiatives.  

The aim of the Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) in Chronic Airways Disease (CAD) Program is to launch a suite of multi-modal education and behaviour change activities. These activities will support HCPs to deliver best-practice and patient-centred care that aligns with the objectives of the National Medicines Policy and National Strategy for Quality Use of Medicines. 

The three organisations within the Lung Learning Partnership are working collaboratively, drawing on the complementary skills and expertise of our respective organisations. The QUM in CAD Program will focus over a period of two years on the topics of best practice and effective diagnosis and treatment initiation in breathlessness, and personalised ongoing care to prevent flare-ups of chronic airways diseases (asthma and COPD). 

The Program Design will be informed by understanding the challenges and enablers that exist for HCPs and people living with CAD and includes inputs from key stakeholders and insights from the development of the Lung Learning Framework. Critical to the design process is a Design Thinking Workshop to bring together people with lived experience of CAD, multidisciplinary healthcare professionals, education designers and behavioural change experts. 

 

Publication date: February 2024 

Author: Asthma Australia on behalf of The Lung Learning Partnership

QUM In CAD Design Thinking Workshop
Spirometry