In November, the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), a Swedish government agency under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, released new national guidelines for asthma and COPD.
The guidelines include recommendations for both policy makers and for treatment of the diseases. The focus is on early diagnosis, care collaboration and self-care.
EFA Members Swedish Heart and Lung Association and Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association highlighted that in order to successfully implement the guidelines the following actions are needed:
• Ensure that priority is given to people with chronic disease
• Establish an implementation plan for guidelines
• Introduction of a permanent feature for updating, monitoring and evaluation of the guidelines
• Insist that patients should be registered in an Airway Registry (Luftvägsregistret)
• Use best practices examples
The guidelines can be found here