Integrated Digitally Enhanced Care for Long-term Conditions- Asthma

Asthma is a common lung condition that causes long term breathing difficulties. There is currently no cure for asthma but the use of simple inhaler treatments can keep the symptoms under control. If asthma symptoms get worse this can lead to an asthma attack which can be life-threatening. It has been shown that most of the deaths related to asthma are preventable if asthma is managed using the correct treatment plan however a significant proportion of patients are not using the right inhalers or not using them properly and do not know how to manage their asthma if it gets worse. There is currently an unmet need to develop tools that can help improve asthma care, identify high risk patients, closely monitor their asthma control in \'real time\' and intervene to optimise treatment to prevent asthma attacks. Both patients and indeed, the current British Thoracic Society (BTS) asthma guidelines recognise that technology has the potential to be used to improve asthma care and could lead to reductions in National Health Service (NHS) services use and improvements in symptoms. Patients with better controlled asthma are less likely to be admitted to hospital and more likely to have an improved quality of life. This study aims to evaluate the delivery of an asthma service using an online doctor providing remote consultations paired with a self-management asthma app. The patients will use the app to input and track their symptoms, which will be monitored by a doctor remotely who can provide advice, optimise medications and intervene in a timely manner to prevent an asthma attack. The service is interactive, so the patient and doctor can communicate with one another 7 days a week by completing a consultation or sending messages via the online doctor portal or speaking on the telephone. The app will relay information about environmental triggers to the patient to help prevent the patient\'s asthma getting worse. The service will provide a new and potentially more convenient way of delivering routine appointments to reduce the numbers that do not attend. The patients will be able to watch educational videos stored on the app about asthma to potentially improve understanding of their condition. Digital training in inhaler technique will be supported with face to face support from pharmacists. The goals are to increase adherence to and correct use of medication, help patients self-manage dynamically to reduce their risk of an asthma attack (with solutions personalised to an individual\'s triggers) and equip healthcare professionals with the data to identify those people at higher risk of an attack. This is a before-and-after open interventional study, which means participants\' asthma control will be compared before and after using the digital asthma management service. It is not a randomised study and participants will be given the choice of using a digital service. It is a single-centre study which will take place within one Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in Hampshire (UK), across at least two GP surgeries. It is anticipated that approximately 80 patients will be recruited. Patients will be provided with this digital asthma service for a period of 6 months of 2018 and outcomes will be measured using a combination of questionnaires (quality of life, patient satisfaction, level of activation) and quantitative measures such as Forced Expired Volume over 1 second (FEV1)(measure of airway obstruction), Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FENO) (measure of airway inflammation) and Asthma Control Test Scores (measure of symptom control). Feedback from NHS professionals hosting the study and online doctors will also be sought. A Health economic model will be generated comparing the digitally enhanced model versus usual care. The main outcome of this study is looking at whether this new model of service delivery can provide an improvement in asthma control test scores.