Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood, affecting almost one out of every ten children in the United States. The burden of asthma falls disproportionately on minority children from lower income urban families. They have much higher death rates from asthma and spend much more time in the emergency room and hospital as a result of their disease than others. It is important to find new approaches to help these children to live healthier lives. One way to do so is to provide better means for them to manage their disease outside of doctor's offices. The long-term objective of this project is to bring to market a technology platform developed by BL Healthcare, Inc. that can give these children a tool for self-management of asthma. This platform integrates three functions-automatic reporting of their peak flow meter readings, multimedia content about living healthier lives with asthma, and automated, interactive patient support functions-on a standard television. The platform is designed to be easy for children to use with just a simple remote control and capable of providing an interactive, media-rich learning environment without the need for a PC. Next-generation, broadband-based technology enables this information-rich approach to be provided in a highly cost-effective manner. In this project, the research team will develop a set of software that integrate wireless monitoring of peak flow readings, interactive multimedia patient education content, and automated patient support functions that works with an already-developed telecommunications device in order create an """"""""asthma management portal"""""""" on the television set that is navigable with a simple remote control. This platform will be tested in 24 children from Boston over a 90-day period to evaluate their perception of its usability and usefulness. Changes in the understanding of these children about their asthma and how to manage it will also be compared to a control group to see if this approach has promise in helping children manage their asthma.
