Transcript
Announcer:
You’re listening to Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD. On this episode, Dr. Marcus Shaker will discuss how digital inhalers can help improve adherence among patients with asthma. Dr. Shaker is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine in New Hampshire. Let’s hear from him now.
Dr. Shaker:
When I think about adherence, I think about it in a few big buckets, right? You can't be adherent to a medicine that you don't have. So you have to have access, and hand in hand with access is cost and the cost-effectiveness of any medication. And then it comes down to education, knowledge, and motivation. And digital inhalers is an interesting approach, right? It gives the patient feedback; it gives the clinician feedback.
There was a study that was done to inform an upcoming Joint Task Force on Practice Parameters, and one of the questions relates to digital inhalers. And they found some significant improvements in asthma control with digital inhalers. It also reduced severe exacerbations, and they concluded that it probably didn't cause any increase in patient harm. Now, it was also cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness study that was done looked at it in terms of euros, but per 0.5-point improvement in asthma control, it cost 278 Euros. So we know it's cost-effective when it comes to digital inhalers.
But there are different patterns of adherence, right? So are digital inhalers for everybody? Maybe not. It's going to relate to what's important to the patient who's using that medicine. It might be that a biologic's a better fit for that patient, but I think digital inhalers certainly have a role for patients who could use that feedback to make sure that they're using the medication in the way that's going to be most effective for them.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Marcus Shaker talking about the role of digital inhalers in improving adherence among patients with asthma. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
