Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the result of damage to the lungs, making it hard for someone with COPD to breathe. The two most common forms of COPD are emphysema and chronic bronchitis, which can cause respiratory failure and irreversible damage to the lungs. There is no cure for COPD, but interventions that help patients understand their disease and how to manage it themselves can improve patient quality of life and prevent crises that would require urgent care. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and World Health Organization's Global Health Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) recommend multiple components for maintaining care of patients with COPD, including regular patient assessment, education concerning COPD, effective communication between patients and their health care providers, patient compliance with treatment plans, implementation of behavioral change models for increasing health, and social support for patients and caregivers. Evidence suggests that these guidelines are not used widely, possibly because they are labor intensive and expensive and require frequent visits to a medical facility. Because effective interventions are not being used by patients and because previous studies show telecommunication technologies are successful in patient self-care, this study will develop a home automated telemanagement (HAT) system incorporating many of the GOLD guidelines for use in patients' homes.

HAT will be an Internet-based system providing ongoing education for patients about COPD, helping patients follow their self-care plans, and helping health care providers monitor patients' self-management through daily access. The system will consist of three pieces: (1) patient units that include a computer or palmtop Internet accessible device equipped with a disease-specific testing device, (2) a HAT server to analyze and store self-testing results, and (3) clinician units that can review patient results on the Internet. By incorporating text, audio, and visual components, the system will provide advice on self-care plans tailored to each patient and will notify health care providers of each patient's plan compliance.

This study has two phases. In the first, a HAT system for COPD will be refined based on user interviews and focus groups. In the second, researchers will test its effectiveness in keeping people with COPD healthy and ensuring they follow their self-care plans.

During the second phase of the study, which will last 18 months, all participants will be provided with an Internet-capable computer. All participants will continue seeing their own doctors and following a regular treatment plan prescribed by their doctors. Some will be randomly assigned to also receive the HAT system. Those given the HAT system will take a 1-hour training course on its use and be expected to use it daily for a 10- to 15-minute self-assessment and disease diary entry. The HAT system will also have other assessment, counseling, and education tools that participants can use. Participants will be assessed seven times, with four assessments at the research site and three at the home of each participant. Assessments will be conducted every 3 months, with those at the research site scheduled at baseline and Months 6, 12, and 18. Participants will complete questionnaires and be interviewed at each assessment to measure the severity of their disease, well-being, and attitudes toward the disease. During the assessments at the research site, additional tests in breathing and physical fitness will be performed.