A smartphone app that keeps people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) out of hospital by allowing clinicians to spot flareups and helping patients manage their condition better, is to be offered to patients in NHS Lothian.

COPD, which is the second most common cause of admission to hospital, is a group of lung conditions that can cause severe breathing difficulties.

The NHS Scotland COPD Support Service, which underwent a rapid roll-out across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde during the covid-19 pandemic, prompts patients to complete daily short questionnaires about their symptoms to allow them and their clinicians to track their condition.

NHS Scotland’s innovation advisory body, the Scottish Health Technology Group (SHTG) concluded that the app appeared to have a positive benefit for some people with COPD who are at high risk, compared with not using it, but pointed out that their assessment had been on only a small group of users.

In the report of an ‘innovative medical technology overview’, SHTG said it looks forward to the outcome of work to develop ‘machine learning predictive modelling’ looking at how artificial intelligence might be used to trawl the data supplied by patients to spot anyone at risk of a flareup or being admitted to hospital before they reach crisis point.

The support service operates on the Lenus platform developed by Edinburgh digital company Storm ID.

Dr Chris Carlin, Consultant Respiratory Physician at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said the technology became available at an important time:

“COPD is the second most common cause of admission to hospital in Scotland and is projected to be the leading cause of mortality worldwide by 2030.

“As part of our response to the covid challenges to try and maintain and bolster COPD care during the covid lockdown with COPD patients’ shielding requirements, we rapidly reorientated and upskilled the dynamic project.

“The partnership between the West of Scotland Innovation Team and Storm ID has reaped benefits which have impacted positively on clinical outcomes and patient care.

“I have not seen clinical trial practice move so fast from results to implementation to getting something new effective in patients’ hands, really by any other approach.”

Researchers are reporting that patients have stuck with the app and its web-based platform throughout the pandemic – both those who were given the app as part of a trial of the technology, who had a high level of contact with clinicians, and those who were given it by their doctors.

Storm ID CEO Paul McGuiness described the collaboration with the clinicians and the e-health team as “amazing”:

“What Storm brought to the COPD project was our service design skills and agile software development practices along with Storm ID’s Lenus health platform that allows patient-generated health data from devices and sensors to be shared back with the clinical teams in real time.”

Outcomes from the GG&C scale up, and the impact on clinical endpoints, were presented in a paper to the British Thoracic Society meeting in February.

Further outcome data and evaluation of outputs from the artificial intelligence part of the project are expected to be published in the second half of this year.

 

Other innovation stories:

Video baby diaries win covid digital award;  Chief Scientist to chair Scottish innovation summit;  Insight: harnessing the pandemic innovation surge;

Sign up to our bulletin for key health & social care updates straight to your inbox.