Telehealth and COPD: meta-study shows little QoL improvement

A review of studies on the use of telehealth interventions (generally remote patient monitoring but also education and pulmonary rehabilitation) with COPD patients is equivocal to somewhat negative on the effectiveness of telehealth on quality of life (QoL) improvement and positive impact on disease progression. Only three of the 18 studies surveyed showed statistically significant improvements, with the others showing no significant improvement. However, the researchers noted the low number of studies and that large-scale controlled trials would be called for; also at the end, they note that what might be more valid is the “comparison to absence of deterioration, relative to control groups, as a perhaps more realistically acceptable success criterion.” Stasis might be a better thing to evaluate given that COPD patients can deteriorate quickly without the right care. Published by a Danish research team at the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.  Dove Press open access. Also FierceHealthIT