A new digital service looking to speed up diagnosis of an inflammatory respiratory condition has been rolled out across Scotland’s biggest health board.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) blocks airflow from the lungs and leads to patients experiencing difficulties breathing, affecting around 140,000 people in Scotland.

As the second most common reason for emergency hospital admissions, early interventions for COPD are vitally important, according to the team behind the digital service.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) has now adopted new digital tools using artificial intelligence (AI) to help identify the patients at highest risk from COPD, to reduce waiting times and support earlier access to preventative care.

The diagnostic pathway and digital tools have been introduced as part of the ongoing POLARIS project – a collaboration between the board’s respiratory innovation team within the West of Scotland Innovation Hub and AstraZeneca.

This POLARIS project is part of a health research partnership to deliver transformation for patients and staff through collaboration for innovative projects focused on different health challenges.

Led by NHSGGC Consultant Respiratory Physician Professor Chris Carlin, the collaborative project has also developed technology to help patients manage their condition at home by predicting flare-ups or episodes of poor health.

Professor Carlin said working collaboratively with Astra Zeneca has enabled the team to address “unacceptably long waiting times” for accessing key tests of respiratory function:

“This launch is a pivotal step towards our ambition to transform care of cardio-respiratory long-term conditions.

“It will allow us to work more efficiently and help to speed up diagnosis for those with COPD, ensuring they are receiving interventions and treatments at an earlier stage.

“The collaboration has let us scope an end-to-end transformation of the COPD diagnostic service, and bring in ArtiQ as a delivery partner within POLARIS.

“We’re excited by the opportunities that the structured data, workflow assistive tools and new AI-based insights that the COPD digital diagnostic service will provide.”

The ArtiQ.Spiro software seeks to further improve capacity and outcomes and has been shown to reduce workload and improve accuracy of respiratory test reporting.

Together, these tools provide a dashboard overview which allows identification of high-risk patients for additional interventions as well as real-time service performance information to support workflow management and evaluations.

Increased capacity provided by the POLARIS project has already significantly reduced waiting times for NHSGGC’s direct spirometry pathway, with the number of people waiting over a year for an appointment falling from 15% to 3% in 12 months. 

So far, the at-home management technology is estimated to have prevented around 400 hospital admissions and 3,600 days spent in hospital by patients with COPD.

The service brings together appointments management, clinical information, test data and direct to patient outcome letters with decision support for referring clinicians.

In doing so, the team says clinicians can work more efficiently, increase capacity and provide management advice more promptly while also being able to take advantage of AI-based software.

Emma Giffen and Fergus Wilkie, who are both Respiratory Physiologists with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said: 

“This is an exciting project and we are delighted that Respiratory Physiology is at the forefront of this innovative approach within healthcare diagnostics.

“Our teams are working incredibly hard across the city to help implement this redesign and we are encouraged seeing a steady reduction in waiting times since the beginning of this project.

“Furthermore, the introduction of workflow assistive tools and AI insights will free up more patient facing time for us and allow us to signpost patients to appropriate services, such as the established COPD digital service.

“We are eager to continue working towards future developments to allow quicker access to diagnosis and subsequent treatment and management for patients with COPD.”

Marko Topolavic, CEO ArtiQ, added that the team were “thrilled” to collaborate with NHSGGC and AstraZeneca: 

“Our shared vision to optimize respiratory diagnostic pathways, and especially detect COPD early and reach patients unaware of this challenging disease drives our commitment.

“The POLARIS project stands as a testament to the transformative power of AI in enhancing respiratory diagnostic pathways.

“Moreover, with the ArtiQ.Spiro technology our team invented, we aim to reduce time and cost per patient, thereby cutting waiting lines, while simultaneously improving spirometry quality and diagnostic outcomes.

“We are incredibly excited about the impact this collaboration will have on improving patient outcomes and reshaping the future of respiratory care.”

Read more: Investigating inequalities in kidney care; Snapshot of NHS recovery revealed; Public health leaders call for ‘systemic change'; Holyrood committee backs abortion clinic buffer zones; Long COVID: Alone and forgotten

Sign up to our bulletin for key health & social care updates straight to your inbox and you can follow healthandcare.scot on Google News.