AMC Health is lending its telemedicine platform to a research project seeking to prove that linking asthma patients at home with physicians can improve outcomes and reduce costs.
With studies indicating 22 million Americans have asthma – 6 million of whom are under 18 – and the chronic condition costs the healthcare system roughly $19.7 billion and leads to 456,000 hospitalizations each year the field is ripe for better engaging patients in their own care.
Using mHealth tools to help people with asthma isn't a new concept. Indeed, Propeller Health, BreathResearch and iSonea are offering mobile tools for asthma management, each with a different approach.
Now, under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, New York-based AMC Health will be working with Asthma Management Systems, a Wilmington, Del.-based developer of adherence disease management programs for people with asthma.
"With the AMC Health telemonitoring platform, the study team will know immediately if a patient doesn't take the controller medication as prescribed, or is using the rescue inhaler too often, and can help stabilize the patient before a full-blown asthma attack forces him or her to go to the emergency room," said Andrew Weinstein, MD, the CEO of Asthma Management Systems and the study's principal investigator, in a press release.
[Infographic: The high cost of low HCAHP scores.]
The study targets people who have visited an emergency room several times for conditions related to uncontrolled asthma. AMC Health will equip half of the participants with SmartInhalers, the company's telemedicine monitor, which clips onto a patient's inhaler and measures when and how often the patient uses the inhaler for either a controller dose — medication that is taken every day — or an emergency dose consisting of medication taken for short-term relief when breathing is difficult.
According to officials, a study team will monitor each patient's use of the inhaler and intervene if a patient is using it too frequently — a sign that the patient is not controlling his or her asthma.
Like the AMC-Asthma Management Systems study, Melbourne Australia-based iSonea is designed for people who aren't managing their health properly, and are therefore more likely to need healthcare services that could have been avoided.
“Regular use of AirSonea during daily activities will help inform people with asthma whether their wheeze is increasing, decreasing or remaining stable,” said Michael Thomas, iSonea's chief executive officer, in a press release. “This information will help people become more aware of their symptoms and vigilant about their risks as well as more attentive to their doctor’s treatment plans.”
Thomas pointed to an Asthma Insights Research Study, conducted by Galaxy Research on the company's behalf, that indicated two-thirds of people with asthma aren't monitoring their symptoms regularly.
While the AirSonea, a smartphone-enabled device that monitors wheeze is expected to reach American markets next year, Wisconsin-based Propeller Health got its start three years ago as Asthmapolis, developing a mobile management platform for asthma patients combining a sensor that attaches to an inhaler with an app in the user's smartphone that collects data and transmits it to a physician. The company recently changed its name to Propeller Health to target a more diverse audience of people with COPD and other respiratory conditions. And BreathResearch, based in Walnut Creek, Calif., is developing a customized headset that measures breathing and other biometric data.
Michael O'Brien, president of AMC Health's clinical trials division, added that the grant provides the opportunity to show this new methodology that AMC and Asthma Management Systems suggested could lead to “ground-breaking research.”
If this round of research proves successful, officials said the companies will submit a grant for a larger study.
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