Digital Health in Respiratory Care
Everyday
life is increasingly influenced by digitization. Digital
health technology promises to facilitate
a patient-centered care model for the management of COPD by empowering patients
to self-manage effectively and presently, it is not widely used in medicine.
For pulmonology,
digitization offers opportunities and risks in different areas like obstructive
lung diseases, thoracic oncology, pulmonary rehabilitation, sleep medicine,
home mechanical
ventilation, and in intensive care
medicine. One of the opportunities is that the use of new technologies such as
medical apps and the analysis of this new support make it possible to better
understand and manage diseases. One of the key advantages is the use of
"big data" for displaying dynamic behavior to better understand
disease processes, and to optimize patient management by using analytic
techniques such as machine learning. Risks to be considered are data privacy
and security as well as the use of artificial intelligence. Strategies used to
date include approaches to monitoring and improving adherence, such as
electronic inhalers, text messaging and reminders, and self-management tools.