New research from Propeller Health, a leading digital therapeutics company, suggests that clinical guidelines for assessing asthma control may need to be updated to reflect objective patient information obtained from digital medicines.
The analysis, done in partnership with the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado and published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, shows that both patients and providers gain a more accurate view of a patient’s medication use when digital sensors record the number of “puffs” of rescue medication that were used.
These findings demonstrate how objective digital data can be used to more accurately measure and assess asthma control, compared to patient-reported data that depends on patient recall and can be skewed by recall bias and healthcare provider interpretation of this data.
This new evidence suggests that “occasions of rescue use,” recommended in the 2009 American Thoracic Society (ATS) and European Respiratory Society (ERS) Task Force report as a method for assessing asthma control, be reconsidered. In particular, these data indicate that there is no clear, natural definition of an “occasion.” In comparison, the reporting of puffs is objective and more easily standardized in clinical practice, paralleling the recommendation for clinical research. Read the full story here.
;
