Overview
In respiratory medicine, medication non-adherence is highly prevalent with over 50% not taking their drugs correctly. Moreover, this treatable trait has been associated with worse outcomes, both clinical and economic. Given that current adherence rates remain worrisomely low, increased awareness and implementation of coordinated self-management interventions are urgently required.
Recent advances in innovative digital technology promise to be a potential game changer. ‘Connected-Health’ can support respiratory healthcare professionals and empower patients in detecting and self-managing their care and specifically addressing medication non-adherence. Using these novel digital tools, clinicians can improve their understanding of patient choice and behaviour, enabling them to provide more personalized support. Some technologies can feed this information back to healthcare providers, allowing more targeted and tailored clinical decision making. For example, these technologies allow physicians to underpin their follow-up interventions and guide additional, often more expensive, (biological) prescriptions with objective and real-time adherence data.
Successful implementation of digital technologies is complex and multifaceted as it will have important individual and organisational implications for how care is delivered.
Objectives
The aim of this ERS Research Seminar is to bring together multidisciplinary clinical and academic stakeholders (physicians, nurses, pharmacists, engineers), policy makers, patient representatives and regulators in order to identify the current barriers and facilitators for implementation of innovative digital respiratory adherence supporting solutions, focusing on coordinated and fully integrated implementation. Participants will also use the workshop to develop consensus on how to approach clinical (e.g. clinical risk-benefit, patient and healthcare professional acceptance), technical (e.g. robustness and harmonization of data), policy (e.g. privacy, GDPR, common data models) and regulatory issues (EMA/FDA approval, reimbursement pathways) in pursuit of optimal implementation of digital solutions.
Participant benefits
Each participant currently approaches the topic from his/her own angle and is not always aware of the surrounding forces and visions on the use of digital applications. The ERS seminar will help the participant to understand other stakeholders’ views and drivers and will accelerate collaboration towards real change in daily practice and policy.
Registration
Registration for this seminar is closed. Please note that participation in this research seminar is upon selection due to the limited number of places available. Notification of selections will be sent by mid-April 2022.