Improved care of COPD through digitalisation.

Purpose and goal:

The purpose of this project is to develop and test digital self-care for COPD with the aim of improving diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment. By offering continuous home follow-up, detecting periods of deterioration can guide patients to seek help earlier. Thereby the patient´s COPD-status is made visible to healthcare providers.

The goal is to enable healthcare to work on preventive measures and to empower individuals with COPD to better understand and manage their chronic illness. Preventing periods of deterioration allows people with COPD to enjoy a better quality of life. Expected results and effects:

The outcome of the project is to develop a self-monitoring tool that can help individuals with COPD to predict and prevent periods of deterioration early. 1 out of 5 individuals with COPD that experience a deterioration period dies within a year, underscoring the importance of identifying deterioration early to initiate the appropriate treatment and prevent further loss of lung function. For healthcare providers, the effect includes being able to monitor the status of their COPD patients at home and, based on this, identify which patients require tailored treatment interventions.

Approach and implementation:

The planned approach involves gathering requirements together with individuals with COPD, healthcare providers, and patient organizations to identify the parameters and setup needed to predict deterioration periods at home effectively. Following this, technical development will occur, focusing on both patient reporting through a mobile application and a web interface for healthcare professionals.

Concurrently, Karolinska Institutet will establish a study protocol to evaluate the tool´s clinical utility and usefulness for patients.