A qualitative study of clinician perceptions regarding the potential role for digital health interventions for the management of COPD

Abstract

Effective self-management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can lead to increased patient control and reduced health care costs. However, both patients and healthcare professionals encounter significant challenges. Digital health interventions, such as smart oximeters and COPD self-management applications, promise to enhance the management of COPD, yet, there is little evidence to support their use and user-experience issues are still common. Understanding the needs of healthcare professionals is central for increasing adoption and engagement with digital health interventions but little is known about their perceptions of digital health interventions in COPD. This paper explored the perceptions of healthcare professionals regarding the potential role for DHI in the management of COPD. Snowball sampling was used to recruit the participants ( n = 32). Each participant underwent a semi-structured interview. Using NVivo 12 software, thematic analysis was completed. Healthcare professionals perceive digital health interventions providing several potential benefits to the management of COPD including the capture of patient status indicators during the interappointment period, providing new patient data to support the consultation process and perceived digital health interventions as a potential means to improve patient engagement. The findings offer new insights regarding potential future use-cases for digital health interventions in COPD, which can help ease user-experience issues as they align with the needs of healthcare professionals.

Patient and clinician use characteristics and perceptions of pulse oximeter use: A scoping review

“…Four more were development studies that described the design and development of a new phone-oximeter and evaluated its usability [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] . Three more were qualitative studies evaluating: 1) the wearability of multiple monitoring devices; 2) the effect of prior health knowledge on the usability of a pulse oximeter; and 3) clinicians’ perceptions, beliefs, and motivations to use pulse oximeters [4] , [21] , [22] .…”

“…Four of the included studies (25%) examined the use of pulse oximeters as a tool to increase availability of care through pairing with a smartphone application [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] . Other applications included: as a diagnostic tool for children with pneumonia [15] , [16] ; a monitoring tool in paediatric telehomecare [11] ; remote risk-based monitoring tool for patients at risk of Cardiovascular disease (CVD) [8] , [10] ; a general monitoring tool for blood oxygenation levels [21] , [22] ; post-operative continuous vital sign monitoring for patients recovering from surgery [14] ; data capture and transmission to streamline clinical trials [9] ; long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) optimization [12] ; and as a digital health intervention for managing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients, either as a diagnostic tool or during rehabilitation [4] , [13] .…”

“…Areia et al, [21] assessed wearability , but also did not provide a definition and only listed the types of measurements collected. Finally, three studies [4] , [14] , [20] gathered general user experience feedback to assess the pulse oximeter.…”

“…Although pulse oximeters have become common practice in a variety of clinical situations, there is limited work synthesising user experience (UX) of these devices [4] . Previous research is limited to measuring accuracy and assessing the technology’s impact on patient outcomes; no review currently exists that focuses on user experience of pulse oximeters [5] .…”

ERS International Congress 2021: highlights from the Allied Respiratory Professionals assembly

“…B. Caulfield started by recalling the results of the latest Cochrane meta-analysis [42] showing strong evidence for the effectiveness of supervised maintenance programmes on quality of life, but low effectiveness on disease exacerbations and hospitalisations in patients with COPD, and suggested that this area could be enhanced by digital technologies. P. Slevin, from B. Caulfield's team, performed a series of semi-structured interviews with patients with COPD and healthcare professionals about the use of digital technologies in the maintenance phase after PR [43][44][45][46]. Patients indicated that digital technologies provided them with an opportunity for self-management and enhanced communication with healthcare professionals.…”