Asthma is increasingly common and expensive. Current estimates place the number of people in the US with asthma at over 25M. Asthma accounts for one-quarter of all emergency room visits in the US. Direct treatment and indirect patient costs rose from $53B in 2002 to $56B in 2007 in the US. Globally, 300M people are estimated to have asthma with prevalence increasing 50% per decade and estimated costs over $100B per year. Proven effective treatments exist to control asthma but the disease is under-diagnosed, undertreated and adherence to medication is poor. Specialty care for asthma leads to improved outcomes and lower costs but there are too few asthma specialists to manage all asthmatics. Accurate assessment of asthma requires specific information about symptoms, medication use and objective lung function measurements (spirometry). Together these components provide the necessary information to evaluate asthma severity and asthma control as recommended by National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) guidelines, which describes these components as """"""""impairment"""""""" and """"""""risk"""""""". Accurate assessment of severity and control is critical to appropriate treatment choices from among the treatment steps articulated in the NAEPP guidelines. Under the current guidelines and best practices, asthma care management is primarily patient self- management based upon an asthma action plan provided by the physician. Specialists usually provide this but other physicians may not. As asthma specialists do not care for most asthmatics, other physicians and physician extenders need solutions to help them assess and manage asthma appropriately. At the same time, the influx of patients into the health care system under the Affordable Care Act necessitates a re-definition of point-of-care beyond the physician's office or clinic to include wherever the patient happens to be (home, work, leisure activities, etc.). Currently there is no mobile, affordable product that provides clinicians and patients with all the key components of asthma assessment and guides treatment choices enabling busy generalists and patients to follow clinical best practices are articulated in the guidelines. Our solution is a integrated system using novel technologies to provide both the non-specialist clinician and the patient with the tools to assess asthma accurately and guidance on developing an asthma action plan based on NAEPP guidelines. If successful, the paradigm will be expanded to other chronic respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis and lung transplant.
Proven effective treatments exist to control asthma but the disease is under-diagnosed, undertreated and adherence to medication is poor. Specialty care for asthma leads to improved outcomes and lower costs but there are too few asthma specialists to manage all asthmatics. Our solution is an integrated asthma management system using novel technologies to provide both the non-specialist clinician and the patient with the tools to assess asthma accurately and guidance on developing an asthma action plan.
| Nguyen, Kristen T; Culjat, Martin O; Mierzwa, Andrzej P et al. (2016) Integrated Self-Management System for Improved Treatment of Asthma. Stud Health Technol Inform 220:262-6 |
