Capitalizing on patient reported outcome measures, wearables, and smartphones towards developing new clinical decision support tools for frequent, remote, longitudinal monitoring of chronic disorders
Abstract:
Ever-increasing healthcare provision demands strain national health systems globally, which struggle to meet patients' needs. This is particularly evident in chronic disorders where patients ideally require regular clinical care, and logistical constraints limit practical clinical assessments over intermittent, sparse, short visits in clinic. There is a growing unmet clinical need to develop accurate, robust, practical decision support tools to facilitate diagnosis, assessment, and symptom monitoring to improve patient health and care for chronic health conditions. I will present an overview of completed and ongoing work towards capitalizing on relatively easy-to-use and increasingly affordable means to collect information at patients’ homes, such as speech and information extracted from passively collected data through smartphones and wearables. I will touch on key considerations and algorithmic tools to process the data and develop practical solutions which empower clinical experts make better-informed decisions towards remotely monitoring symptom trajectories and objectively assessing therapeutic interventions. These new and emerging technologies have enormous potential to transform contemporary healthcare delivery.
