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A new lung clinic opening in Halifax at the end of November is hoping to tackle long waitlists for breathing tests, while also aiming to act as a recruitment tool to fill respiratory therapy vacancies in Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotia Lung Wellness Clinic has been in the works for over two years. It was a proposed solution to a growing problem during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people in some parts of the province faced a four-year wait for a five-minute spirometry test.
“When I tell my colleagues elsewhere in the world about how long people wait here for a breathing test, it’s quite embarrassing because we know that we can do better and it’s a problem that has a simple solution,” said Sanja Stanojevic, an associate professor at Dalhousie University’s department of community health and epidemiology.
Stanojevic is a part of the team that came up with the solution of creating the clinic.
When it opens, respiratory therapy students at Dalhousie will administer the test under the supervision of a preceptor provided by Nova Scotia Health.
It will give them on-the-job training, which is a requirement for their program, while also tackling the long waitlist.
Spirometry tests are key in diagnosing pulmonary conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). An estimated 13 per cent of Nova Scotians have COPD, but Stanojevic says without the test, it’s frequently misdiagnosed.
She said making someone wait for a spirometry test is like making a diabetic wait years for a diagnostic blood test.
“What that means if a doctor guesses that someone has COPD, they might be put on treatments that aren’t working for them,” she explained.
“They might be put on treatments that have side effects and unintended consequences. By providing accurate diagnostic tests, we’re able to get the right diagnosis for an individual in a timely way.”
The clinic is a partnership between the Lung Association of N.S. and P.E.I., Nova Scotia Health, and the provincial Health Department, but it’s being funded by GSK Canada, a biopharma company.
It gave Dalhousie $300,000 to test the clinic as an 18-month pilot program.
In a statement, the Department of Health and Wellness said the project “demonstrates how our health-care system, community and industry can work together to find solutions to better support Nova Scotians.”
Catherine Gunn, director of the school of health sciences at Dalhousie, is overseeing the education piece of the clinic.
“We’re going to be taking a couple of hundred patients off the list every month,” she said.
Not only will it benefit wait times, but it will help address staffing gaps, said Gunn.
Nova Scotia Health says it currently has 37 full-time vacancies for respiratory therapists — about 20 per cent of its staffing needs, and that doesn’t include vacancies at the IWK, in long-term care facilities or private clinics.
Dalhousie doubled the enrolment to its respiratory therapy program to respond to the need two years ago, accepting 24 students a year, but then it ran into another issue: finding work placements for the students.
Many had to travel out of province to get their on-the-job experience, but that left the window open for them to be recruited by other provinces.
Gunn said this clinic allows the students studying in Nova Scotia to train in the province, leaving a higher chance for them to stay permanently.
“It provides the care at a slightly reduced pace. It’s a safe place for learning and it allows them access to patients that they would see in the hospital, but in a different environment.”
Gunn said the clinic is in the process of contacting people who have been longest on the waitlist, including those in the Western Zone to see if they’re willing to travel to Halifax for the test.
Once they work through the backlog, she hopes to allow referrals from primary care providers, with an eye on eventually allowing self-referral from patients who don’t have a provider at all.
“We knew that we were doing something that is innovative and great,” she said of the plans for the clinic. “It’s exciting to do something new.”
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