Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Acute Care Quality Improvement Toolkit 

This Quality Improvement Toolkit provides Australian health services with a practical, evidence-based framework to deliver safer, more consistent and more effective acute care for people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Drawing on the results of the COPD Acute Care Collaborative (CACC), a partnership between Lung Foundation Australia, Safer Care Victoria and ten Victorian hospitals across metro, regional and rural locations, the toolkit translates national guidelines into actionable steps that can be embedded into everyday clinical practice. 

Designed for clinicians, executives, quality teams and respiratory care leaders, the toolkit aims to close the gap between what best-practice COPD care should look like and what is delivered in real-world hospital settings. It provides standardised tools, templates and checklists that support accurate diagnosis, consistent treatment, improved patient education, and safer transitions of care. These resources are aligned directly with the COPD Clinical Care Standard, COPD-X Guidelines and GOLD recommendations, ensuring health services can measure their performance against national benchmarks. 

A core purpose of the toolkit is to help health services implement proven interventions that reduce preventable hospitalisations and readmissions, an urgent priority given COPD remains one of Australia’s leading causes of avoidable hospital stays. Through structured Plan–Do–Study–Act (PDSA) cycles, multidisciplinary teamwork and strong executive support, the toolkit guides teams to test changes, evaluate outcomes and embed sustainable improvements in clinical workflows. 

The toolkit also supports a more person-centred approach to COPD care. It equips clinicians with resources that help patients understand their condition, use inhalers correctly, follow their COPD Action Plan and engage with pulmonary rehabilitation, key factors known to improve recovery, build self-management skills and reduce exacerbations. 

This Quality Improvement Toolkit exists to accelerate the uptake of best-practice COPD care across acute healthcare settings, strengthen clinical consistency, empower patients, and ultimately improve health outcomes for people living with COPD.