Digital health

Healthcare challenges are pushing digital health forward

We are increasingly confronted with new health care challenges: rising numbers of chronic diseases such as cancer, COPD, asthma, or diabetes concern our aging population. The occurrence, consequences and treatment costs of some of the diseases are amplified by air pollution and other environmental contamination. New digital health infrastructure represents the best way to address the emerging challenges in health care. It automatizes the sharing of patient data, enables the access of remote care sites and simplifies payment flows. In addition, it empowers patients to monitor their health from home, get their drugs administered without healthcare providers, and obtain real-time feedback on drug delivery or the course of disease.

Organization and implementation of digital health

However, digital health means more than this. Arising applications also include types of medical devices – for example in the drug injection field – offering new monitoring and diagnostic functions. Directly on the patient, they often represent wearables such as insulin pumps or hand-held devices such as smart inhalers. Moreover, well-being devices such as smart watches, sleep monitors, or breath analyzers deliver health-relevant data that complete digital health information. These connected devices are designed around patient-centric software (Patient Monitoring System – PMS) that enhances hardware capability, in addition to connectivity to a service provider for the storage and processing of patient data. 

The successful implementation of new digital health technology relies not only on software, but just as much on new measurement and feedback solutions. These are most powerful when they interact in real-time with the patient by collecting their data, analyzing it and providing feedback both to the patient and the healthcare providers. Using the right sensor that is capable to collect usage, safety, and diagnostic data, provides a strong value proposition for all parties involved.

Patient benefits of our sensing solutions

The interaction quality between patient and wearable device depends strongly on the sensor. Choosing an optimal sensing solution might be challenging from the design perspective: it must reliably fulfill its function and seamlessly be integrated into the patient’s user experience. On its path towards digital health, Sensirion already offers various advanced sensing technologies for different applications.

Importance of digital health applications in the industry

Given the high value for the patient, partnerships are forming between pharma companies and technology companies around the world, resulting in the development of new drug delivery devices. GSK, for example, recently partnered with Propeller Health to develop a digital inhaler; while AstraZeneca partnered with Adherium to bring an adherence monitor to market to support AstraZeneca’s Turbuhaler medication.

Digital health is also being supported by governments. New legislations – such as DiGA in Germany or Article 51 in France – lay the foundation for digital health environments by supporting new care pathways such as doctors’ prescriptions of digital health apps. In the USA, the additional Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes are further advancing the usage of connected devices, and thus extending the definition of remote patient monitoring. These devices are also capable of monitoring non-physiological information, that helps to assess patient adherence to a prescribed therapy: for example, by determining whether the patient is following their care regimen and how their therapy is working.