PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Temple Lung Center study shows benefits for COPD patients using digital health application

2015-08-31
(Press-News.org) (Philadelphia, PA) - Early intervention facilitated by a digital health application for reporting symptoms of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) provides key benefits for patients, according to the results of a Temple-led, two-year clinical study.

COPD is a serious chronic respiratory disease that is often characterized by flare-ups, called acute exacerbations, in which the patient may experience increased coughing, mucus, shortness of breath, wheezing, and a feeling of tightness in their chest. If exacerbation symptoms are not detected and treated in a timely fashion, they can escalate, leading to repeated trips to the emergency department, hospitalizations, disability, and a diminished quality of life.

The Pennsylvania Study of COPD Exacerbations (PA-SCOPE), led by Gerard J. Criner, MD, FACP, FACCP, Founding Chair of the new Department of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery at Temple University School of Medicine, and Director of the Temple Lung Center, revealed that COPD patients who used a digital health application to report their daily symptoms and received same-day treatment recommendations from their health care provider experienced fewer and less severe COPD exacerbation symptoms, which led to an improvement in daily symptom control, lung function, and activity status.

The digital health application allows COPD patients to report their respiratory symptoms and peak expiratory flow measurements, which were assessed by a computer algorithm and compared with initial values to achieve a symptom deviation score - a measure of how serious the symptoms are relative to the patients' baseline metrics. Scores in excess of a predetermined threshold were reviewed by a nurse and referred to a physician who prescribed treatment. The application allowed health care providers to initiate treatments that were optimized for individual patients' symptoms on the same day that COPD symptoms worsened.

"Previous studies at other sites have questioned the efficacy of various telemedicine solutions in COPD patients, but those studies have not used a solution that enables same-day treatment in response to worsening patient symptoms," says Dr. Criner, who served as the principal investigator of the study. "We have been studying digital health solutions for COPD symptom management for over a decade and are pleased that the improvements we have seen in our patients in response to early identification and intervention has been documented in this clinical study."

The study also revealed an encouraging degree of reporting compliance by moderate to severe COPD patients who used the digital health application, as evidenced by the high rate of daily symptom reporting sustained over a prolonged period.

While the study failed to enroll the number of patients needed to show either a mortality benefit or reduction in hospitalization days prior to the end of study funding, results were in the predicted direction. "Future studies are needed with greater numbers of patients enrolled to be able to address that outcome, and additional research is already underway with that aim," says Francis Cordova, MD, Medical Director of the Lung Transplantation Program at Temple University Hospital, and lead author on the study.

The technology employed in the study is a precursor to the solution currently offered by Temple University spin-off company HGE Health Care Solutions. "The clinical research being conducted at Temple continues to reveal the ability of telemedicine and digital solutions to provide meaningful, measurable results for COPD symptom management," said Michael J. Markus, PhD, CEO of HGE. HGE's application is also supported by Temple's recently launched Center for Digital Health.

INFORMATION:

PA-SCOPE was supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (grant RFA 02-07-20), and the publication will appear in the February 2016 issue of Telemedicine and e-Health. The publication was made available online ahead of print on August 10, 2015.

Editor's Note: HGE Health Care Solutions is a Temple University spin-off company and the exclusive licensee to certain Temple University intellectual property.

Dr. Gerard Criner is the founder of HGE Health Care Solutions.

Both Temple University and Dr. Criner are minority owners in the company.

About Temple Health Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $1.6 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH), ranked among the "Best Hospitals" in the region by U.S. News & World Report; TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; Fox Chase Cancer Center, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Jeanes Hospital, a community-based hospital offering medical, surgical and emergency services; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; and Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices. TUHS is affiliated with Temple University School of Medicine. Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM), established in 1901, is one of the nation's leading medical schools. Each year, the School of Medicine educates approximately 840 medical students and 140 graduate students. Based on its level of funding from the National Institutes of Health, Temple University School of Medicine is the second-highest ranked medical school in Philadelphia and the third-highest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to U.S. News & World Report, TUSM is among the top 10 most applied-to medical schools in the nation.

Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by Temple University School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.

About HGE Health Care Solutions, LLC HGE Health Care Solutions offers chronic disease management solutions that improve patient care and achieves clinical and financial outcomes for hospital systems and payors, and provides development, validation and clinical research support for industry partners. http://www.hge.healthcare



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Raising pay can reduce smoking rates

2015-08-31
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- In addition to restricting when and where tobacco is used at work, UC Davis Health System research shows that employers can do something else to reduce smoking: raise wages. Published in the August issue of the Annals of Epidemiology, the study found that a 10 percent increase in wages leads to about a 5 percent drop in smoking rates among workers who are male or who have high school educations or less and improves their overall chances of quitting smoking from 17 to 20 percent. "Our findings are especially important as inflation-adjusted wages ...

Magnetic stimulation effective in helping Parkinson's patients walk

2015-08-31
Amsterdam, NL, August 31, 2015 - About 50% of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience freezing of gait (FOG), an inability to move forward while walking. This can affect not only mobility but also balance. In a new study published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, researchers report that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can reduce FOG and improve other motor skills in PD patients. In a study conducted by researchers at the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, 17 PD patients experiencing FOG were treated with either ...

Medication treatment for opioid use disorders in primary care increases patient access

2015-08-31
BOSTON - Clinicians at Boston Medical Center (BMC) showed that expanding the number of sites offering office-based opioid treatment with buprenorphine (OBOT B) utilizing addiction nurse care managers, trainings and technical support resulted in more physicians becoming waivered to prescribe buprenorphine and more patients accessing treatment at sites across Massachusetts. This model, highlighted online in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, demonstrates the efficacy of this medication-assisted treatment modality as a sustainable way to treat greater numbers of patients ...

NASA sees Hurricane Jimena's large eye

NASA sees Hurricane Jimenas large eye
2015-08-31
NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-East satellites provided views of Hurricane Jimena that showed it maintained a large eye and powerful thunderstorms around it. On August 31, Jimena continued moving through the Eastern Pacific as a major hurricane. An infrared image from NOAA's GOES-West satellite on August 31 at 8:00 a.m. EDT revealed that Hurricane Jimena's wide-eye continued to be cloud free. The GOES image also showed thick bands of powerful thunderstorms circling the eye. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard Aqua gathers infrared data ...

'Happy Meals' bill could improve healthfulness of fast food meals for kids in NYC

2015-08-31
A bill to improve the nutritional value of fast food restaurant meals marketed to children--like McDonald's Happy Meals--could have a wide enough impact to reduce calories, fat, and sodium, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center. The study, which will publish in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine online on August 31, includes collaboration from NYU College of Global Public Health, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The "Healthy Happy Meals" ...

Scientists 'squeeze' light one particle at a time

Scientists squeeze light one particle at a time
2015-08-31
A team of scientists has successfully measured particles of light being "squeezed", in an experiment that had been written off in physics textbooks as impossible to observe. Squeezing is a strange phenomenon of quantum physics. It creates a very specific form of light which is "low-noise" and is potentially useful in technology designed to pick up faint signals, such as the detection of gravitational waves. The standard approach to squeezing light involves firing an intense laser beam at a material, usually a non-linear crystal, which produces the desired effect. For ...

Deciphering the olfactory receptor code

Deciphering the olfactory receptor code
2015-08-31
In animals, numerous behaviors are governed by the olfactory perception of their surrounding world. Whether originating in the nose of a mammal or the antennas of an insect, perception results from the combined activation of multiple receptors located in these organs. Identifying the full repertoire of receptors stimulated by a given odorant would represent a key step in deciphering the code that mediates these behaviors. To this end, a tool that provides a complete olfactory receptor signature corresponding to any specific smell was developed in the Faculties of Science ...

Come here and be quiet!

Come here and be quiet!
2015-08-31
Researchers at the Babraham Institute have discovered a strong physical gene interaction network that is responsible for holding genes in a silencing grip during early development. In the same way that people can interact with others in close proximity, say within the same room, or others millions of miles apart, there are also short- and long-range interactions within the genome forming a three-dimensional configuration where different parts of the genome come into contact with each other. The research, reported online in Nature Genetics, presents how key decision-making ...

Examining service delivery, patient outcomes in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program

2015-08-31
Outpatient human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) health care facilities funded by the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) were more likely to provide case management, mental health, substance abuse and other support services than those facilities not funded by the program, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. RWHAP was established in 1990 to provide funds to states, metropolitan areas and clinics to increase access to high-quality HIV care and treatment for low-income, uninsured and underinsured individuals and families affected by ...

Religion, physicians and surrogate decision-makers in the intensive care unit

2015-08-31
Religious or spiritual considerations were discussed in 16 percent of family meetings in intensive care units and health care professionals only rarely explored the patient's or family's religious or spiritual ideas, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Understanding how frequently discussions of spiritual concerns take place - and what characterizes them - is a first step toward clarity regarding best practices of responding to spiritual concerns in advanced illness. Douglas B. White, M.D., M.A.S., of the University of Pittsburgh School ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Temple Lung Center study shows benefits for COPD patients using digital health application