Over the last years, digital tools and solutions have increased their presence within the health sector. Their added value is to be found in numerous aspects, including access to information, diagnosis, quality of care, and disease management.
The digitalisation of healthcare brings a great potential for non-communicable diseases such as allergy, asthma and COPD because of their chronic nature, their intimate links with environment we live in and the need to involve patients in informed disease self-management.
Recommendations based on available evidence and expert knowledge
In line with the rapid roll-out of digital health applications across the globe, in April the World Health Organisation (WHO) released its first Guideline on Digital Health Interventions. The document formulates 10 key recommendations that aim at taking advantage of the progress made to date and maximizing the positive impact on health systems and patients’ health.
At EFA we are encouraged to see WHO providing recommendations on issues such as telemedicine, digital tracking of health status, and healthcare workers’ training, aiming at improving the lives of patients with allergy, asthma and COPD.
People living with allergy, asthma and COPD have long been seeing the uptake of digital technologies as immensely beneficial for their quality of life. This has been demonstrated by the already matured applications of Digital Health and ePrescriptions.