TY - JOUR T1 - Multidisciplinary care in chronic airway diseases: the Newcastle model JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00215-2022 SP - 00215-2022 AU - Vanessa M McDonald AU - Peter G Gibson Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2022/06/16/23120541.00215-2022.abstract N2 - Chronic airway diseases including, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are prevalent and high burden conditions with the majority of patients successfully managed in the primary care setting. However, some patients with more complex disease such as difficult-to-treat or severe asthma, or complex COPD, tertiary care is required. This review provides an overview of the successful tertiary care multidisciplinary respiratory service that operates in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, which has been integrated into the tertiary care outpatient clinics for almost three decades. The service is multifaceted in terms of the clinical care it provides, and includes an “Inpatient service”, “Asthma Management Service”, “Difficult Airway Clinic”, “Drug Administration Clinic”, “Rapid Access Clinic”, “Pulmonary Rehabilitation” and has an integrated research programme. The core of the multidisciplinary approach to airway diseases is a person-centred model of care, the “Treatable Traits” approach. The staffing of this service comprises of consultant physicians, respiratory advanced trainees, respiratory scientists, physiotherapists, speech pathologists, nurse specialists and a nurse consultant. Patients that present to this service undergo an initial assessment and clinical review by team members, synthesis of relevant data, and development of a diagnosis and management plan. Based on this review specific interventions are determined according to the traits identified. Overtime the service has evolved to accommodate the increasing numbers of patients requiring access to the “Difficult Airways Clinic” assessment and therapies. This has been facilitated by partnered with the Centres of Excellence in Severe Asthma and Treatable Traits to develop educational and practice management tools.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article. ER -