The management, privacy and medico-legal issues of electronic CPAP data in Australia and New Zealand: Electronic CPAP data management in Australia and New Zealand

The Effect of Patient-Facing Applications on Positive Airway Pressure Therapy Adherence: A Systematic Review

STUDY OBJECTIVES

Many patients struggle with adherence to positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy for sleep apnea. In this systematic review we examined the effect that patient-facing applications (PFA)-web-based applications that interact directly with the patient-have on PAP adherence.

METHODS

A comprehensive search of PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and SCOPUS databases was performed. We looked for studies where: (1) patients were adults with sleep apnea initiating PAP therapy for the first time; (2) the intervention was a PFA that incorporated individual PAP use data; (3) the comparison was usual and/or telemedicine care, and (4) outcomes of objective PAP adherence data were recorded.

RESULTS

Seven studies were identified (two randomized trials, one prospective cohort trial, four retrospective cohort studies). Cumulatively the studies enrolled 304,328 patients, with individual enrollment ranging between 61 and 172,678 patients. Six studies showed that PFA use was associated with using PAP for significantly more hours per night (range 0.7-1.3 hours more). PFA cohorts used PAP a greater proportion of nights and had a lower rate of mask leak. There was no difference in apnea-hypopnea index and self-reported measures of symptoms between study groups.

CONCLUSIONS

PFA use was associated with improved adherence to PAP therapy. Although this conclusion is based on only two small trials and predominantly observational studies and therefore should be tested in large prospective trials, the PAFs are inexpensive, do not draw on health care resources, and show promise in improving PAP therapy for OSA.

Does remote monitoring change OSA management and CPAP adherence?

It is increasingly recognized that the high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), and its associated cardio-metabolic morbidities make OSA a burden for society. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), the gold standard treatment, needs to be used for more than 4 h/night to be effective, but suffers from relatively poor adherence. Furthermore, CPAP is likely to be more effective if combined with lifestyle changes. Thus, the remote telemonitoring (TM) of OSA patients in terms of CPAP use, signalling of device problems, following disease progression, detection of acute events and monitoring of daily physical activity is an attractive option. In the present review, we aim to summarize the recent scientific data on remote TM of OSA patients, and whether it meets expectations. We also look at how patient education and follow-up via telemedicine is used to improve adherence and we discuss the influence of the profile of the healthcare provider. Then, we consider how TM might be extended to encompass the patient's cardio-metabolic health in general. Lastly, we explore how TM and the deluge of data it potentially generates could be combined with electronic health records in providing personalized care and multi-disease management to OSA patients.