The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a group of researchers from UCLA and USC $6 million to develop technology designed for children that predicts their asthma attacks. Researchers working on this project are a part of NIH's $144 million Pediatric Research Integrating Sensor Monitoring Systems (PRISMS) initiative.
The UCLA-USC team is one of many that the NIH is working with on this initiative. While the LA-based group is working on integrating data and providing contextual data, other groups are focused on sensor development and data collection as well as cloud-based storage.
“Asthma is the most common chronic condition in children, and it weighs heavily on the nation in terms of public health, medical costs and quality of life,” Alex Bui, the principal investigator and a professor of radiological sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said in a statement. “Our goal is to predict where and when a child is at risk for an asthma attack so we can prevent one from happening.”
The researchers are developing an app that will integrate data from sensors that the child has, like those in a smartphone; sensors at the child's school, for example air quality sensors; the patient's electronic health record; and reports on the current weather, air quality, as well as pollen count. Another feature in the app will be a calendar where users can track asthma attacks. Based on personalized environmental and contextual information that the researchers collect, Bui told MobiHealthNews that over time he hopes his team can detect patterns and prevent asthma attacks in the future.
"The example I like to give is if we notice that the patient is having a lot of asthma attacks when they go to the beach, and we have access to their family calendar and we notice that there is a plan to visit the beach tomorrow," Bui told MobiHealthNews. "We indicate, 'Ok just remember to take your asthma inhaler and your medication and be aware'. That's a very simple type of example of how we could affect these types of behaviors to improve the patient's compliance and ultimately prevent the attack if possible."
Researchers plan to beta test the app in 2016. And the year following, researchers from USC plan to test the technology with about 40 children who are being treated at UCLA for asthma. Insights that that researchers want to collect during field testing include accuracy and usability.
Earlier today, Propeller Health, which develops smart inhalers to help manage asthma, announced a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline in which Propeller will develop and manufacture a custom sensor for GSK’s Ellipta inhaler for COPD patients. Propeller Health has also previously worked on integrating environmental data with sensor data to provide insights for patients, which is similar to the goals of the UCLA-USC team.
