Ce billet est disponible en anglais seulement et apparaît sur le site anglophone de la Tribune-Santé. Cliquez ici pour atteindre le site et laisser un commentaire sur ce billet.

Why focus on eHealth solutions for chronic disease management? Specifically, how can these tools empower Canadians with asthma to improve their health and quality of life by managing their disease more effectively?  Let me suggest a few key reasons here and invite you to comment on them or add your own to the list.

First, I believe that easy-to-use applications for use on mobile data and communication devices will appeal to certain demographics and encourage people to self-monitor and better control their illness. The eHealth tools will simply make it convenient and interesting in a way that paper-based tools cannot. 

Second, these applications will encourage people to pay more attention to their health and to record data which they can use themselves or share with health care professionals.  Information such as exactly how much medication they have used, exposure to triggers, symptoms and flare-ups and lung function results can easily be recorded and saved so months later when trying to recall the exact circumstances of an asthma attack or other incident, people don’t need to rely on memory. 

One additional benefit of using eHealth tools to monitor and record information about asthma and associated allergies is that a review of data over time, either by the patient, their family or their health care team has the power to reveal patterns that can help inform and improve overall asthma management plans. 

Would love to hear your views on the applicability of eHealth solutions for asthmatics or those with other chronic diseases.