One of the difficulties facing the IPF community has been a lack of knowledge and awareness about the disease among many doctors and even specialists.
An aggressive disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, requires early diagnosis and appropriate treatment as soon as possible to try to improve the prognosis and extend life expectancy.
Makes sense right? The sooner you know what you’re fighting, the sooner you can put a battle plan together.
Now, the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) is excited to announce that they have added 19 new Care Centers to their PFF Care Center Network! Today, they have a total of 40 Care Centers spread across 27 states in the US.
For people who have lived with IPF for years, the fact that there are 40 such care centers exclusively for IPF is mind-boggling.
Each care center contains teams of experts who work together to treat each individual’s IPF. They understand that IPF is a very complex condition, and it varies greatly from person to person.
While it may be surprising that some location names on the list weren’t already there, like Johns Hopkins, other names like the University of Rochester Medical Center, show that the reach of this program is growing. And that’s important.
With more medical centers spending money to get experts together and find effective ways to treat IPF, more people living with IPF will have access to quality care closer to their homes.
Not only that, but having dedicated centers for IPF can also improve the collection of data for research. This, in turn, will help improve how doctors treat IPF and increase longevity for patients.
Now, that’s what I call a winner!
Of course, this is still just the beginning, with 23 states still without a medical center as part of the PFF Care Center Network. But, if the IPF community can come this far in such a short amount of time, there’s no telling what we will be able to accomplish in the future!
