Lung Diseases & Pulmonology

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.