Smartinhaler is a personal medical monitoring system developed by Adherium Ltd of New Zealand. While previous studies have shown improvements in adherence when asthma patients use this monitoring system, a study conducted at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in the UK demonstrated that along with a 30 per cent higher adherence there was also an improvement in clinical outcomes, compared to the control. There was a reduction in hospital admissions during a 12-month controlled trial for children with asthma using Smartinhaler, demonstrating a benefit of the electronic monitoring system for effective asthma management.
“The results from this study suggest that this approach is likely to be beneficial if introduced into routine clinical care, at least in those children with poor asthma control. It is likely that the intervention resulted in an overall reduction in health costs, given that the majority of the direct costs associated with asthma are attributable to hospital admissions, or exacerbations sufficient to require intervention.”