Asthma UK today unveils a key report that tells developers how mHealth could help asthma sufferers better. Entitled “Connected asthma: how technology will transform care”, whilst picking out a few excellent exemplars, it describes how poor the average asthma app currently is – for example only 6% of such apps provide pollution status, and only 8% cover inhaler technique.
Historically CHF, COPD & diabetes have been regarded as the key long term conditions to manage using telehealth. When, as this editor did a few years back, a suggestion was made to try it on asthma, clinicians tended to look askance. Yet as this report shows, mHealth can do a huge amount to improve the management of asthma especially now many people have smartphones. And, bluntly, asthma kills if you don’t manage it properly. Three people die of asthma in the UK every day; two thirds of deaths are preventable.
So if you’re a developer looking for a challenge, be sure to read it; if not, still read it as it’ll open your eyes to the dramatic changes coming that others will be making to improve asthma management. It’s packed full of really useful information and covers both the clinical and the technological viewpoints.
(Disclosure this editor gave a little assistance to Joseph Clift from Asthma UK in preparing the report)
Dear Sirs,
I’m on the run of a new startup to help developing mHealth solutions targeted to not well treated chronical diseases. I’ve read your article and I find it very interesting. It’d be a pleasure for me if I colud help about Asthma.
Sincerely,
Joel Invers