Activ8rlives' Asthma+me for paediatric asthma
Asthma+me was co-designed with paediatricians at NHS Trusts (UK) supporting the transition from treatment in specialist paediatric clinics to community care, with initial focus on meeting needs of children aged 6-12years with moderate-to-severe asthma. Asthma+me Supports wireless medical monitors, medication diaries, trigger alerts for pollution/pollen/weather, symptoms tracking, care plan and extensive educational syllabus.
Asthma+me uses the PUFFClicker – a tracker for pressurised metered-dose inhalers, counting doses, and supporting improved inhaler technique.
Children are involved in setting their goals and are motivated by incentives to promote behaviour change, increasing adherence to their Care Plan,
About
1.1 million children in the UK have Asthma, a long-term condition for which positive effects of treatment are well-documented. However, <50% children take their medications as prescribed, causing poor asthma control, huge cost and wastage to the NHS. Child Asthma deaths are rare but poor adherence to therapy was found to be a preventable cause in 34%.
Lack of medication adherence in asthma is a global problem. £300million worth of medications/year are wasted in primary care and 50% patients do not take medication as prescribed.
Asthma+me provides basic disease monitoring via connected devices, patient education, medication adherence, & motivational support through self-care to reduce severity of asthma attacks, A&E and hospital admissions.
Current development and integration of AI components will significantly enhance the solution allowing disease status reporting to specialist clinics, less clinician time and in-built expertise for patients. The Asthma+me App is the first remote monitoring self-management solution in paediatric clinical trials. Risks are stratified on need with a personalised-care approach, thereby reducing emergency admissions, improving patient safety and quality-of-life.
Asthma is the most common chronic medical condition among UK Children/Young People and is a NHS England priority. 10% of children with asthma have clinically-defined moderate-to-severe or difficult-to-treat asthma and should be treated in specialist paediatric clinics.
In our current RCT we are applying novel techniques to warn parents when their child is likely to have an asthma attack. Adding Neural Networks to provide patients and clinicians with actionable insights (7-day warnings) would make the classification of Asthma+me a Class IIb medical device.
