About

What is Asthmapolis?

Asthmapolis is dedicated to improving the management of asthma for patients and healthcare professionals.  Despite advances in our understanding of the disease and the development of more effective medications, morbidity and mortality from asthma have not declined. Our understanding of asthma has been limited by a lack of timely data, and our inability to collect information about where and when people develop symptoms.  Asthmapolis is using medication sensors, mobile applications, advanced analytics and feedback to help physicians identify those patients who need more help controlling the disease before they suffer a severe and costly exacerbation.

Current projects

We have several projects underway right now, including research to better understand patterns of asthma morbidity, air pollution exposure and the development of asthma symptoms, and interventions to remotely monitor and improve adherence with controller medications.

Our largest ongoing project is a collaboration with the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, designed to map and characterize asthma in rural areas of the Midwest. If you live in the region and are interested in participating, please contact us.

Our team

David Van Sickle, PhD

David was formerly an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He writes about asthma epidemiology, medical anthropology, and global chronic respiratory disease at davidvansickle.com

Greg Tracy, MS

Greg is a technology enthusiast who excels at applying technology in new domains with the potential for large scale. He balances the big vision of how software technology can improve our lives with being an advocate for customers still living in the present. He writes about his geeky pet projects, startups, Madison and unicorns (just seeing if you’re still reading) at his blog. You can also follow him on Twitter at @gregtracy.

Mark Gehring

Mark has previously co-founded and served as CEO of three companies: Geometrics, developer of a 3D radiation treatment planning system that has been the market leader since 1996 (now marketed by Philips); UltraVisual, a medical imaging company which merged with Emageon, reached $100 million in sales, and went public in 2005; and Sharendipity, a software development environment for non-programmers.

Fernando Holguin, MD, MPH

Fernando is the Director of the Pediatric Environmental Medicine Center at the University of Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital and Assistant Director of the Asthma Institute at the University of Pittsburgh.

Special thanks: George Wiel, John Mullahy, Stephanie Robert, Dave Kindig, Paul Garbe, Teresa Morrison, David Callahan, Ryan Brower, Matt Van Sickle