University of Colorado Hospital Announces the new Center for Lungs and Breathing

By bringing together nationally-renowned specialists in state-of-the-art facilities, the center will be able to provide an increased level of care and ensure the best possible outcomes for patients.
Oct. 1, 2015

Aurora, Colo.  (October 1, 2015) – UCHealth’s University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), a national leader in pulmonology, cancer and upper airway disorders, opens its new multidisciplinary program—the Comprehensive Lung and Breathing Program, designed to provide expert, integrated patient care.

By bringing together nationally-renowned specialists in state-of-the-art facilities, the center will be able to provide an increased level of care and ensure the best possible outcomes for patients.

The center organizes its team of experts in seven categories:

  • Lung transplantation
  • Lung cancer and head and neck cancer
  • Advanced lung diseases including pulmonary fibrosis and COPD
  • Complex airway conditions
  • Sleep disorders
  • Allergy, asthma and inflammatory diseases

The Center for Lungs and Breathing is designed to provide an excellent patient experience. Will Cook, president and CEO of UCH, said the center aims to see patients within one week after their initial call. Their goal is to provide better service to both patients and their referring doctors.

“Our patients will have peace of mind knowing a team of experts is working together to effectively treat their condition,” said Cook.  “The Center for Lungs and Breathing will always put patients first, making tests and appointments as convenient as possible and offering the most advanced treatments and clinical trials.”

The center will include a central access center and phone number, with a nurse navigator transferring calls to the appropriate specialist.

Navigators in the appropriate specialty will then guide patients through the process of setting up single-day rounds of tests and appointments with various doctors likely to be involved in their care.

Through the center, UCH is expanding its expertise in allergy and asthma treatment; ear, nose and throat conditions; sleep medicine and interventional pulmonology.

Todd Bull, MD, a pulmonary and critical-care specialist who serves as interim medical director for the center, said the center is “a new organizational approach to areas of medicine in which we have historically had exceptional expertise. Treating lung and upper airway disease has been a strength of ours for decades.”

“We’ll be able to care for patients from early stages of lung and airway disease all the way through lung transplant,” Bull said. “With nationally-renowned specialists and researchers, the Center for Lungs and Breathing will be able to provide the very best and most comprehensive care for patients throughout the Rocky Mountain Region.”

For more info on the Center for Lungs and Breathing, visit their website or call 855-LUNG-UCH to make an appointment. To see how specialists at the Center for Lungs and Breathing changed a patient’s life, watch Lindsay’s story.

About University of Colorado Hospital

University of Colorado Hospital is the Rocky Mountain region’s leading academic medical center.  UCH is best known as an innovator in patient care and often as one of the first hospitals to bring new medicine to the patients’ bedside.  University HealthSystem Consortium named UCH the #1 Academic Medical Center in quality in the nation in both 2011 and 2012, and U.S. News & World Report named University of Colorado Hospital the best hospital in Colorado in 2012, 2013 and 2014.  UCH is one of five Colorado hospitals that make up UCHealth.  The hospital’s physicians are affiliated with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, part of the University of Colorado system.  Based on the expansive Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, CO, the hospital is where patient care, research and education converge to establish the future of health care delivery.

About UCHealth

UCHealth is a Front Range health system that delivers the highest quality patient care with the highest quality patient experience.  University of Colorado Health combines Memorial Hospital, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies, Colorado Health Medical Group, and University of Colorado Hospital into an organization dedicated to health and providing unmatched patient care in the Rocky Mountain West. UCHealth partners with the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine and numerous community organizations to provide care. Separately, these institutions can continue providing superior care to patients and service to the communities they serve. Together, they push the boundaries of medicine, attracting more research funding, hosting more clinical trials and improving health through innovation.