Blog

We’re happy to report that most of our new sensor is manufactured and assembled in the US. Last week we toured our manufacturing facility to get a look at the first batch as they get loaded on the line, and to review the test and assembly processes. Here are some photos from the visit:

This device, called a test fixture, helps to automate the testing of the device

Some of the assembly stations on the manufacturing floor

Chris Hallberg (right) of Asthmapolis demonstrating how the sensor is assembled

The Institute of Medicine has posted archived videos from the 2011 Health Data Initiative Forum in Washington DC. Our presentation with Jean Wright, MD, of the Southern Piedmont Beacon Community is here, along with dozens of other videos from presenters like Brian Kelly of Aetna.

Mitch Kapor, one of our investors, gave a great talk at the recent Rock Health Innovation Summit in San Francicso. His presentation, Doing Well By Doing Good: Opportunities in Digital Health, summarizes the rationale behind his investments in several new health companies, including Asthmapolis and Omada Health, and the key factors in technology and policy that are enabling startups to lower health care costs, improve outcomes across populations, and build sustainable businesses.

For more from the event, check out the Rock Health YouTube channel. 

Our sensor is on its way! For nearly a year we’ve been building a great new inhaler tracker. Our latest model, which works with mobile phones and the Qualcomm 2Net basestation to record valuable information about every inhalation, is almost ready. Here’s a sneak peek:

Asthma rate and costs from traffic-related air pollution are much higher than once believed

A research team led by University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist Sylvia Brandt, with colleagues in California and Switzerland, have revised the cost burden sharply upward for childhood asthma and for the first time include the number of cases attributable to air pollution, in a study released this week in the early online version of the European Respiratory Journal.

The total cost of asthma due to pollution is much higher than past traditional risk assessments have indicated and there is growing evidence that exposure to traffic-related air pollution is a cause of asthma and a trigger for attacks. They conducted the study in Long Beach and Riverside, CA, communities with high regional air pollution levels and large roads near residential neighborhoods.

Total additional asthma-specific costs there due to traffic-related pollution is about $18 million per year, almost half of which is due to new asthma cases caused by pollution, they report. Brandt worked with researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, Sonoma Technology, Inc. and the University of Southern California.

Using updated techniques that count asthma cases attributable to air pollution for the first time and including a broader range of health care costs such as parents’ missed work days, extra doctor visits and travel time along with prescriptions, the researchers found that a single episode of bronchitic symptoms cost an average $972 in Riverside and $915 in Long Beach. Bronchitic symptoms (daily cough, congestion or phlegm, or bronchitis for three months in a row) are a critical outcome for children with asthma.

Further, people who live in cities with high traffic-related air pollution bear a higher burden of these costs than those in less polluted areas, they say.

Brandt and colleagues say the total annual cost for a typical asthma case was $3,819 in Long Beach and $4,063 in Riverside, and “the largest share of the cost of an asthma case was the indirect cost of asthma-related school absences.” School absences are an important economic consequence, they add, because “they often lead to parents or caregivers missing work.”

Overall, Brandt points out that the results are relevant and applicable to many settings and “families with children who have asthma are bearing a high cost. The total annual estimate between $3,800 and $4,000 represents 7 percent of median household income in our study in these two communities. This is troublesome because that is higher than the 5 percent considered to be a bearable or sustainable level of health care costs for a family.”

Riverside and Long Beach account for about 7 percent of the total population of California, the authors say, which suggests that state-wide costs of asthma related to air pollution are “truly substantial.”

For this work, Brandt and colleagues analyzed several surveys on health care visits by children with asthma and their previous estimates of the number of asthma cases attributable to pollution to estimate the annual costs of childhood asthma. They also estimated the cost of asthma exacerbation due to regional air pollutants. They feel the new method does a better job of accounting for the full impact of traffic-related pollution and will be widely applicable in urban areas.

She points out, “Traditional risk assessment methods for air pollution have underestimated both the overall burden of asthma and the cost of the disease associated with air pollution. Our findings suggest the cost has been substantially underestimated and steps must be taken to reduce the burden of traffic-related pollution.”

I recently spoke with Sarah Klein from The Commonwealth Fund, one of the leading private foundations focused on healthcare research and quality.

Our Q&A – about Asthmapolis and the potential of mobile technology to improve the quality of care and public health - is published in their Quality Matters newsletter this month. Read more »

In addition, the newsletter has another article on apps for health care quality improvement that is  well worth reading.

Providers have proven eager adopters of health care “apps,” the software applications used on cell phones and other mobile devices to perform specific tasks, such as charting data points or aggregating information. Apps can be easily integrated into providers’ workflow, delivering information when and where they need it. Disease management apps, in particular, can improve communication between patients and providers and promote adherence to recommended care. Still, for apps to achieve their potential, they will need to be factored into reimbursement models and meet clear clinical needs. Read more »

CSC’s Leading Edge Forum has just published a new research report, Data rEvolution, which surveys the growing role and value of data in various industries, or, as they put it, “examines the world’s rapidly escalating appetite for data, how organizations are creating new ways to manage and see that data, and what new discoveries, services and opportunities will arise from it.”

Asthmapolis is featured as an example of the possibilities of a new data economy in health and healthcare.

It’s a long (65 pgs) but quite well written and thoughtful report that is freely available (with minimal registration) here:  www.csc.com/lefreports.

For shorter takes there is also a press release and a feature article, and a video or two.

Mark and I are in DC today getting ready for a week of exciting health data events, culminating with the second Health Data Palooza on Thursday, and all created by an incredible and relentlessly inspiring team at HHS.

For more on what’s to come, don’t miss Todd Park’s post on the Health Care Blog today. For those who can’t make it to DC, it’s possible to watch online and a number of universities around the country are hosting satellite viewing parties, too. The HCB post has information on all the options.

If you’re in DC, please say hello on Thursday.