The Autoimmune Lung Clinic, a collaboration between the UNMC Department of Internal Medicine’s rheumatology and immunology division and its pulmonary, critical care, sleep and allergy division, opened June 7 in the Durham Outpatient Center.
The multidisciplinary clinic provides high-quality patient care to those with autoimmune lung diseases and facilitates clinical and translational research in autoimmune lung diseases.
“A combined clinic is critical for patients with autoimmune lung diseases,” said Bryant England, M.D., assistant professor division of rheumatology and immunology. “Both the rheumatologist and pulmonologist are often assessing the same disease and using the same or similar medications but sometimes with different perspectives.”
Patients are seen by rheumatology and pulmonology doctors together, allowing critical data to be obtained the same day the patient is seen.
“Patients are able to get a comprehensive evaluation of multisystem diseases,” said Daniel Hershberger, M.D., assistant professor division of pulmonary, critical care, sleep and allergy. “They get several sets of opinions that help form a cohesive plan.”
Dr. Hershberger said that the patients they’ve seen have enjoyed the collaborative effort and that the multidisciplinary approach has provided a learning opportunity for him on every case.
The Autoimmune Lung Clinic Team constructed the clinic design, work-flow and scheduling and built the Registry of Autoimmune Lung disEaseS (RALES) to collect clinical data, patient-reported outcome measures and lab data as well as collecting and biobanking patient samples.
“Patients have appreciated the ‘one-stop shop’ of getting all the testing they need done and getting to see both rheumatology and pulmonology in one visit,” said Dr. England. “And other clinicians have been eager to refer patients to the clinic.”