The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research

Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research
Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality despite current treatment strategies which focus on smoking cessation, pulmonary rehabilitation, and symptomatic relief. A focus of COPD care is to encourage self-management, particularly during COVID-19, where much face-to-face care has been reduced or ceased. Digital health solutions may offer affordable and scalable solutions to support COPD patient education and self-management, such solutions could improve clinical outcomes and expand service reach for limited additional cost. However, optimal ways to deliver digital medicine are still in development, and there are a number of important considerations for clinicians, commissioners, and patients to ensure successful implementation of digitally augmented care. In this narrative review, we discuss advantages, pitfalls, and future prospects of digital healthcare, which offer a variety of tools including self-management plans, education videos, inhaler training videos, feedback to patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs), exacerbation monitoring, and pulmonary rehabilitation. We discuss the key issues with sustaining patient and HCP engagement and limiting attrition of use, interoperability with devices, integration into healthcare systems, and ensuring inclusivity and accessibility. We explore the essential areas of research beyond determining safety and efficacy to understand the acceptability of digital healthcare solutions to patients, clinicians, and healthcare systems, and hence ways to improve this and sustain engagement. Finally, we explore the regulatory challenges to ensure quality and engagement and effective integration into current healthcare systems and care pathways, while maintaining patients' autonomy and privacy. Understanding and addressing these issues and successful incorporation of an acceptable, simple, scalable, affordable, and future-proof digital solution into healthcare systems could help remodel global chronic disease management and fractured healthcare systems to provide best patient care and optimisation of healthcare resources to meet the global burden and unmet clinical need of COPD.

COPD, digital health, exacerbations, inhaler technique, machine learning, patient engagement, pulmonary rehabilitation
1753-4658
Watson, Alastair
67936648-9486-403c-96b4-95aea4e833b4
Wilkinson, Tom M.A.
8c55ebbb-e547-445c-95a1-c8bed02dd652
Watson, Alastair
67936648-9486-403c-96b4-95aea4e833b4
Wilkinson, Tom M.A.
8c55ebbb-e547-445c-95a1-c8bed02dd652

Watson, Alastair and Wilkinson, Tom M.A. (2022) Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research. Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, 16. (doi:10.1177/17534666221075493).

Record type: Review

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality despite current treatment strategies which focus on smoking cessation, pulmonary rehabilitation, and symptomatic relief. A focus of COPD care is to encourage self-management, particularly during COVID-19, where much face-to-face care has been reduced or ceased. Digital health solutions may offer affordable and scalable solutions to support COPD patient education and self-management, such solutions could improve clinical outcomes and expand service reach for limited additional cost. However, optimal ways to deliver digital medicine are still in development, and there are a number of important considerations for clinicians, commissioners, and patients to ensure successful implementation of digitally augmented care. In this narrative review, we discuss advantages, pitfalls, and future prospects of digital healthcare, which offer a variety of tools including self-management plans, education videos, inhaler training videos, feedback to patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs), exacerbation monitoring, and pulmonary rehabilitation. We discuss the key issues with sustaining patient and HCP engagement and limiting attrition of use, interoperability with devices, integration into healthcare systems, and ensuring inclusivity and accessibility. We explore the essential areas of research beyond determining safety and efficacy to understand the acceptability of digital healthcare solutions to patients, clinicians, and healthcare systems, and hence ways to improve this and sustain engagement. Finally, we explore the regulatory challenges to ensure quality and engagement and effective integration into current healthcare systems and care pathways, while maintaining patients' autonomy and privacy. Understanding and addressing these issues and successful incorporation of an acceptable, simple, scalable, affordable, and future-proof digital solution into healthcare systems could help remodel global chronic disease management and fractured healthcare systems to provide best patient care and optimisation of healthcare resources to meet the global burden and unmet clinical need of COPD.

Text
17534666221075493 - Version of Record
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (654kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 7 January 2022
Published date: 2 March 2022
Keywords: COPD, digital health, exacerbations, inhaler technique, machine learning, patient engagement, pulmonary rehabilitation

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 456480
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456480
ISSN: 1753-4658
PURE UUID: 98037597-61e3-49d8-b190-35693e6ce350

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 03 May 2022 16:52
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 16:50

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Alastair Watson

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×