Telehealth mitigates COPD disease progression compared to standard of care: a randomized controlled crossover trial

Understanding the Gaps in the Reporting of COPD Exacerbations by Patients: A Review

Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are associated with loss of lung function, poor quality of life, loss of exercise capacity, risk of serious cardiovascular events, hospitalization, and death. However, patients underreport exacerbations, and evidence suggests that unreported exacerbations have similar negative health implications for patients as those that are reported. Whilst there is guidance for physicians to identify patients who are at risk of exacerbations, they do not help patients recognise and report them. Newly developed tools, such as the COPD Exacerbation Recognition Tool (CERT) have been designed to achieve this objective. This review focuses on the underreporting of COPD exacerbations by patients, the factors associated with this, the consequences of underreporting, and potential solutions.

Telemedicine and Resource Utilization in Pulmonary Clinic

BACKGROUND

Telemedicine use increased with the Covid-19 pandemic. The impact of telemedicine on resource use in pulmonary clinics is unknown.

METHODS

This retrospective cohort study identified adults with pulmonary clinic visits at the University of Miami Hospital and Clinics (January 2018-December 2021). The primary exposure was telemedicine versus in-person visits. Standard statistics were used to describe the cohort and compare patients stratified by visit type. Multivariable logistic regression models evaluated the association of telemedicine with resource use (primarily, computed tomography [CT] orders placed within 7 days of visit).

RESULTS

21,744 clinic visits were included: 5,480 (25.2%) telemedicine and 16,264 (74.8%) in-person. In both, the majority were < 65-years-old, female, and identified as Hispanic white. Patients seen with telemedicine had increased odds of having CT scans ordered within 7 days (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.34, [95% confidence interval 1.04-1.74]); and decreased odds of chest x-rays (aOR 0.37 [0.23-0.57]). Telemedicine increased odds of contact of any kind with our healthcare system within 30-days (aOR 1.56 [1.29-1.88]) and 90-days (aOR 1.39 [1.17-1.64]). Specifically, telemedicine visits had decreased odds of emergency department visits and hospitalizations (30 days: aOR 0.54 [0.38-0.76]; 90 days: aOR 0.68 [0.52-0.89]), but increased odds of phone calls and electronic health record inbox messages (30 days: aOR 3.44 [2.73-4.35]; 90 days: aOR 3.58 [2.95-4.35]).

CONCLUSIONS

Telemedicine was associated with an increased odds of chest CT order with a concomitant decreased odds of chest x-ray order. Increased contact with the healthcare system with telemedicine may represent a larger time burden for outpatient clinicians.

Health Status Progression Measured Using Weekly Telemonitoring of COPD Assessment Test Scores Over 1 Year and Its Association With COPD Exacerbations

Background

A previous longitudinal study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) Assessment Test (CAT) score changes suggested patients fall into 3 patterns: stable, improving, and worsening. This study assessed the evolution of CAT scores over time and its relationship to exacerbations.

Methods

In total, 84 participants used a telemedicine platform to complete CAT weekly for 52 weeks. Completion rates, annualized change in CAT scores, and learning effects were measured, as well as CAT changes of >4 units during look-back periods of 4 and 8 weeks. In a subgroup of participants with at least a 25% completion rate (adherent group, n=68 [81%]), the relationship between change in CAT score and exacerbations at any time during the study was examined post hoc.

Results

Linear regression showed that 50%, 22%, and 28% of the adherent subgroup had CAT scores indicating worsening, stable, and improving health status, respectively. In the adherent subgroup, 70% (n=7/10) of participants who had an exacerbation during the study had worsening CAT scores, versus 47% (n=27/58) without an exacerbation. The hazard ratio association between CAT score increase and moderate exacerbation was 1.13 (95% confidence interval: 1.03-1.24). Most participants experienced at least one CAT score change of >4 units, and 7% showed an initial learning effect with a median of 2 weeks.

Conclusion

Measuring trends in CAT scores may allow future studies to group patients into 3 defined categories of change over time and quantify CAT change trajectories to assess treatment response and potentially predict medium-term outcomes within individual patients.

Comparison of Treatment Modality Crossovers in Telehealth and In-Person Behavioral Health Treatment in Rural Communities

Background: Treatment crossovers occur when one mode of treatment is begun and then a different mode of treatment is utilized. Treatment crossovers are frequently examined in randomized controlled trials, but have been rarely noted or quantitatively evaluated in usual care treatment studies. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the extent of modality crossovers during behavioral health treatment. Methods: The nonrandomized, prospective, multisite research design involved two active treatment groups-a telehealth treatment cohort and an in-person treatment cohort. Treatment modality (telehealth or in person) during each encounter was compared overall and across two time periods (pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic) between the telehealth cohort and the in-person cohort. Results: Overall, modality crossovers were relatively uncommon (6.3%). However, patients in the in-person treatment cohort were more than twice as likely to have an encounter through telehealth (8.5%) than patients in the telehealth treatment cohort were to have an in-person encounter (3.4%) even though they had the same average number of encounters. The occurrence of off-mode encounters was particularly influenced by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: In this multisite usual care study comparing telehealth and in-person behavioral health treatment, modality crossovers were more common in the in-person cohort than the telehealth cohort, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because telehealth availability has increased, crossovers are likely to increase in patients receiving multiple encounters for behavioral or chronic conditions and their occurrence should be noted by both researchers and practitioners.

Content, Mechanism, and Outcome of Effective Telehealth Solutions for Management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: A Narrative Review

Telehealth (TH) solutions for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) are promising behavioral therapeutic interventions and can help individuals living with COPD to improve their health status. The linking content, mechanism, and outcome of TH interventions reported in the literature related to COPD care are unknown. This paper aims to summarize the existing literature about structured TH solutions in COPD care. We conducted an electronic search of the literature related to TH solutions for COPD management up to October 2023. Thirty papers presented TH solutions as an innovative treatment to manage COPD. TH and digital health solutions are used interchangeably in the literature, but both have the potential to improve care, accessibility, and quality of life. To date, current TH solutions in COPD care have a variety of content, mechanisms, and outcomes. TH solutions can enhance education as well as provide remote monitoring. The content of TH solutions can be summarized as symptom management, prompt physical activity, and psychological support. The mechanism of TH solutions is manipulated by factors such as content, mode of delivery, strategy, and intensity. The most common outcome measures with TH solutions were adherence to treatment, health status, and quality of life. Implementing effective TH with a COPD care bundle must consider important determinants such as patient's needs, familiarity with the technology, healthcare professional support, and data privacy. The development of effective TH solutions for COPD management also must consider patient engagement as a positive approach to optimizing implementation and effectiveness.

Barriers to Telehealth Utilization Among Patients of Limited Income with Chronic Conditions and a Gap in Care

Objective: This study assessed barriers and facilitators to telehealth utilization among patients living in New York City public housing with chronic conditions and a gap in clinical care. Methods: Community health workers performed outreach to eligible patients by telephone between January and March 2021. Consenting respondents answered questions about telehealth barriers, including internet and cell phone access, ownership of digital devices, comfort with using digital devices, comfort with telehealth, cost, awareness, and availability of written materials in patients' preferred language. We obtained demographic and medical information from patients' electronic health records. We used multivariable logistic regression to estimate the association of barriers with the odds of self-reported prior telehealth utilization. Results: A total of 304 consenting patients participated in the program. The average patient had 3.1 telehealth barriers; 76% reported at least one barrier. Regression analysis showed sizable reductions in prior telehealth utilization associated with the barriers of unlimited cell phone minutes (odds ratio [OR]: 0.21 [0.05-0.88], p = 0.033), technological comfort (OR: 0.33 [0.13-0.82], p = 0.016), conceptual comfort with telehealth (OR: 0.15 [0.04-0.54], p = 0.004), and materials in the patient's preferred language (OR: 0.23 [0.07-0.79], p = 0.02). Discussion: With a high prevalence of telehealth barriers, patients with limited income, a chronic condition, and a care gap may benefit from greater technological access and supportive programs for awareness, telehealth comfort, and navigation support. Addressing telehealth barriers could increase the quality of medical care and improve health outcomes for this population.

[Efficacy of tele-rehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A systematic review]

Since 2020 we have lived an exceptional situation that made us experience a complete lockdown due to SARS-CoV-2, what affected the treatments of different pathologies, such as the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Because of those reasons, it has arisen the idea of implementing the tele-rehabilitation program as a treatment of these pathologies. The search was done between the months of October and November 2020, with the aim of analyzing and updating the efficacy of the tele-rehabilitation in patients who have COPD, finding eight articles which met the inclusion criteria. The pulmonary tele-rehabilitation is able to improve the quality of life and physical state, and decreasing the number of hospitalizations and exacerbations. Furthermore, patients showed a great level of satisfaction and adherence to this treatment program. The pulmonary tele-rehabilitation can achieve similar results as of pulmonary rehabilitation. For this reason, people who have difficulties to go to their outpatients clinic or even in a lockdown can use it. However, it is necessary to investigate which tele-rehabilitation program is better.

Unleashing the Power of Very Small Data to Predict Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Introduction

In this article, we explore to what extent it is possible to leverage on very small data to build machine learning (ML) models that predict acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD).

Methods

We build ML models using the small data collected during the eHealth Diary telemonitoring study between 2013 and 2017 in Sweden. This data refers to a group of multimorbid patients, namely 18 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as the major reason behind previous hospitalisations. The telemonitoring was supervised by a specialised hospital-based home care (HBHC) unit, which also was responsible for the medical actions needed.

Results

We implement two different ML approaches, one based on time-dependent covariates and the other one based on time-independent covariates. We compare the first approach with standard COX Proportional Hazards (CPH). For the second one, we use different proportions of synthetic data to build models and then evaluate the best model against authentic data.

Discussion

To the best of our knowledge, the present ML study shows for the first time that the most important variable for an increased risk of future AECOPDs is "maintenance medication changes by HBHC". This finding is clinically relevant since a sub-optimal maintenance treatment, requiring medication changes, puts the patient in risk for future AECOPDs.

Conclusion

The experiments return useful insights about the use of small data for ML.

Telemedicine in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A systematic review

Telemedicine is defined as the use of electronic technology for information and communication by healthcare professionals with patients (or care givers) aiming at providing and supporting healthcare to patients away from healthcare institutions. This systematic review over the last decade (2013-2022) investigates the use of telemedicine in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We identified 53 publications related to: (1) home tele-monitorization; (2) tele-education and self-management; (3) telerehabilitation; and (4) mobile health (mHealth). Results showed that, although evidence is still weak in many of these domains, results are positive in terms of improvement of health-status, use of health-care resources, feasibility, and patient satisfaction. Importantly, no safety issues were identified. Thus, telemedicine can be considered today as a potential complement to usual healthcare.

Analysis of the effectiveness of remote intervention of patients affected by chronic diseases: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives

The aim of the study was to verify the effectiveness of telemedicine in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in terms of its influence on physical conditioning, quality of life, and health conditions in adults/elderly people affected by chronic diseases.

Design

This was a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods

The search covered RCTs published from 2011 to 2021 and was conducted using the PubMed, Embase, PEDro, Lilacs, and Cochrane Library databases, on volunteers of both sexes, that were rehabilitated, and/or monitored, and/or evaluated, specifically, via remote care. The extraction, quality of studies, and risk of bias were assessed using the RoB2 (risk of bias) tool, for analysis of the strength of evidence, the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Developing, and Evaluation) method was used, and for the preparation of meta-analysis was used at RevMan 5.4 (Review Manager) was used.

Results

The database search identified 3949 potential articles for screening, 13 of which were eligible for the present systematic review, involving 1469 participants with chronic diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, heart failure, diabetes mellitus, and fibromyalgia). Through the meta-analysis, an advantage was identified for the remote intervention on physical conditioning (p = 0.001), with an estimated effect of 0.29 (0.11, 0.46) and on health conditions (p = 0.0004), -0.30 (-0.47, -0.14), while for quality of life, no significant difference was identified (p = 0.90), 0.01 (-0.13, 0.14).

Conclusion

Telemedicine has clinical effectiveness for the outcome of physical conditioning and general health conditions in adults with chronic diseases when compared to usual care without face-to-face intervention.

Vaccination and modern management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - a narrative review

INTRODUCTION

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) carries a tremendous societal and individual burden, posing significant challenges for public health systems worldwide due to its high morbidity and mortality. Due to aging and multimorbidity but also in the wake of important progress in deciphering the heterogeneous disease endotypes, an individualized approach to the prevention and management of COPD is necessary.

AREAS COVERED

This article tackles relevant immunization strategies that are available or still under development with a focus on the latest evidence but also controversies around different regional immunization approaches. Further, we present the crossover between chronic lung inflammation and lung microbiome disturbance as well as its role in delineating COPD endotypes. Moreover, the article attempts to underline endotype-specific treatment approaches. Lastly, we highlight non-pharmacologic prevention and management programs in view of the challenges and opportunities of the COVID-19 era.

EXPERT OPINION

Despite the remaining challenges, personalized medicine has the potential to offer tailored approaches to prevention and therapy and promises to improve the care of patients living with COPD.

The Role of Digital Tools in the Timely Diagnosis and Prevention of Acute Exacerbations of COPD: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways and lung parenchyma with multiple systemic manifestations. Exacerbations of COPD are important events during the course of the disease, as they are associated with increased mortality, severe impairment of health-related quality of life, accelerated decline in lung function, significant reduction in physical activity, and substantial economic burden. Telemedicine is the use of communication technologies to transmit medical data over short or long distances and to deliver healthcare services. The need to limit in-person appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rapid increase in telemedicine services. In the present review of the literature covering published randomized controlled trials reporting results regarding the use of digital tools in acute exacerbations of COPD, we attempt to clarify the effectiveness of telemedicine for identifying, preventing, and reducing COPD exacerbations and improving other clinically relevant outcomes, while describing in detail the specific telemedicine interventions used.

Telehealth mitigates COPD disease progression compared to standard of care: a randomized controlled crossover trial

BACKGROUND

We showed excellent adherence and satisfaction with our telehealth care (TC) approach for COPD. Here, the results of a consecutive randomized controlled trial are presented.

METHODS

Patients were randomly assigned to TC or standard care (SC). During TC, patients answered six daily questions online, and focused on the early recognition of exacerbations, in addition to SC.

RESULTS

The mean increase in COPD assessment test (CAT) was 1.8 vs. 3.6 points/year in the TC and SC groups, respectively (P = 0.0015). Satisfaction with care (VAS) at baseline was 8.2; at the end of SC, 8.5 (P = 0.062); and after TC, 8.8 (P < 0.001). We detected significantly more moderate exacerbations during TC.

CONCLUSION

Whilst receiving TC, the slope of the CAT increase - an indicator of the naturally progressive course of COPD - was reduced by 50%. Satisfaction with care increased with TC. The higher number of detected moderate exacerbations probably indicates a higher diagnostic sensitivity than without TC.