Hull digital study sees 50% fall in COPD emergency attendances

A study of a digital service for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) resulted in a 50% reduction in emergency room attendances and admissions for patients.

COPD is a long-term progressive lung disease, which affects more than 1.7 million people across the UK and accounts for one in eight of all UK hospital admissions.

The Dynamic Rose study, which took place between December 2022 and March 2024, funded by the Small Business Research Initiative, recruited more than 100 patients from HUTH following an admission for COPD.

Interim results from three months of the study, published on 6 June 2024, found that offering COPD patients a digital supported self-management service, provided by Lenus Health indicated a reduction in hospital admissions of more than 50% after the first month and a sustained reduction in hospital admissions of 45% after three months compared to historic controls.

Prof Michael Crooks, respiratory consultant at HUTH, said: “COPD exacerbations are a common reason for hospital attendance, admission and negatively affect sufferers’ quality of life.

“The Dynamic Rose study has provided early additional evidence, that builds on the work in Glasgow, that Lenus’s digital service can help to reduce the frequency of COPD exacerbations that require hospital treatment and admission.

“This has great potential to maintain patients’ wellbeing and also free-up valuable hospital resources.’’

Patients in the study were provided with the Lenus Treat, COPD service to self-report their symptoms, access self-management resources, and communicate with the clinical team when needed.

This was aimed at helping patients to identify when they were at early risk of exacerbation, so that appropriate interventions could be actioned by clinicians.

The digital support service was modelled to be more effective and £1,749 less costly than standard care, per patient per annum, by an independent health economic evaluation undertaken by the York Health Economic Consortium, funded through the project.

In Hull, emergency admissions for COPD patients over the age of 35 are nearly twice the national average, with 318 admissions per 100,000 compared to the national figure of 190.8, according to 2022/2023 statistics from Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

Paul McGinness, chief executive of Lenus Health, said: “These results demonstrate that providing care teams with the right digital tools to virtually manage patients can improve health outcomes and release clinical capacity back into the system by reducing unscheduled hospital admissions”.

The Lenus Health collaboration with HUTH follows a study which found a 50% reduction in hospital admissions and respiratory-related occupied bed days for participants at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Meanwhile, One Health Lewisham is working with med tech company TidalSense on a six-month pilot, which began in April 2024, to develop educational resources for an AI-powered device to diagnose COPD.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published draft guidance on digital supported self-management of  COPD in June 2024.

This story was updated at 13.09 on 11 July 2024 to add updated emergency admission figures.