SBIR Phase I: Development of a Smart Health Management System for Respiratory Patients

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of an intuitive, easy-to-use, Smart Respiratory Health Management System for respiratory patients and their physicians. This system includes (1) lab-quality lung function data produced by the proposed mobile spirometer and paired smartphone application, (2) the interpretation and contextualization of this lung function data based on local environmental and physiological risk factors, and (3) the delivery of these insights to physicians and patients. By leveraging this software platform, this technology is expected to enable physicians to make timely interventions with their at-risk patients, thereby preventing acute respiratory exacerbations (e.g., asthma attacks) and any associated hospitalizations or visits to the emergency department. Currently, respiratory diseases are poorly managed, and the proposed predictive technology can help reduce the 1.6 million annual asthma-related visits to the emergency department. By enabling preventative patient interventions, the proposed technology is expected to reduce the high cost of asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations. The proposed system-level solution will empower asthma patients to participate in their own health and treatment, while simultaneously improving health-related behaviors, patient-physician communication, and preventative care coordination. The proposed project focuses on the development of a software platform that connects chronic respiratory disease patients to physicians, to alert physicians of declining lung health. With this preemptive alert, physicians can intervene with patients before an acute respiratory exacerbation, thereby reducing hospitalizations and their associated costs. There are three steps required to implement this proposed system. The first is to facilitate the affordable collection of daily lab-quality lung function data. This step has already been completed via a mobile spirometer and pair smartphone application. The second step is to interpret and contextualize the collected data. This step requires the development of a predictive algorithm that incorporates risk factors from a physical activity and local environment. The third step is to deliver this data and their interpretation to the physician in a manner that is seamlessly incorporated into the existing electronic health records infrastructure and the physician's workflow. The second and third steps will be undertaken as part of this Phase I grant.