The world is undergoing a digital transition that is changing our societies and economies at an unprecedented speed, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 has been a challenging year for all but it has also pushed the health sector to implement more and improved digital services, to overcome barriers in standard healthcare systems.
But are patients’ needs taken into consideration in this rush to digitalisation?
Through the DIGIT project, we will conduct a survey of 1000 patients in 5 countries to understand the digital needs, perceptions and use by asthma and COPD patients, including also those with chronic cough and those with frequent respiratory infections. The results will help us to gather more insights on the asthma and COPD patient digital journey.
As an outcome from the survey, we will issue a Charter for Digital Asthma and COPD Care, which will identify the key principles for developing, running and using digital tools for asthma and COPD from the patients’ perspective. The Charter and the Report from the survey will feed into digital policy and practice.
You can find more information on DIGIT and on EFA activities in digitalisation here.
In 2019 the EFA Active Patients Access Care report final recommendations clearly stated that asthma and COPD patients wish to have two-way digital tools to enable patient-doctor follow-up and adherence to treatment. In the 2020 Allergy and Respiratory Patients Conference, EFA focused on the power of digitalisation and innovation to improve health services across Europe and empower allergy and respiratory patients in managing their care. In 2021 we want to centre asthma and COPD patients’ views in the digitalisation process.
This project is made possible thanks to unrestricted grants from EFA's Sustainable Funding Partners Astra Zeneca, Chiesi, MSD, OM Pharma, Roche.