UC Davis Health will integrate Propeller Health‘s remote monitoring platform into its own electronic health record (EHR) system in an effort to offer personalized treatment for high-risk patients with asthma and COPD.

UC Davis Health will provide the Propeller program – including sensors, mobile app, web portal, and personalized support – to eligible patients, with eventual expansion to patients in other UC locations and UC affiliates. The Propeller sensors attach to a patient’s inhaler to capture unique signals that record events, such as medication usage or respiration, with data transmitted directly to UC Davis Health’s EHR system.

Propeller Health was acquired by ResMed Inc in January 2019.

“Digital health devices and platforms are helping improve care for patients with chronic conditions, like COPD, by providing clinicians a more expansive view of our patient’s disease management,” said Brooks Kuhn, assistant professor of medicine and co-director of the Comprehensive COPD Clinic. “This collaboration will help us improve the clinical outcomes of our COPD patients by identifying the need for interventions early so we can avoid serious exacerbations, preserve their lung function and improve their quality of life.”

Through the EHR system integration, clinicians will be able to track a patient’s day-to-day utilization of their inhalers, allowing them to monitor the use of “everyday medications” that keep the lungs optimally functioning as well as the rescue medication use, which is used when the patient is short of breath and needing more help.

“The rescue use will be key in alerting clinicians that the patient may be experiencing early signs of a COPD exacerbation,” explained Krystal Craddock, clinical operations manager for respiratory care. “We will then be able to reach out to these patients and treat them early, hopefully avoiding unnecessary emergency room visits or hospitalizations.”

As a leading academic medical center with a patient-centered focus on digital health, this collaboration is the latest initiative from UC Davis Health to treat COPD patients with digital health technologies. In 2022, the Comprehensive COPD Clinic created the first remote patient monitoring program in the Sacramento region for high-risk patients with COPD.

“We are committed to advancing digital and data-driven healthcare models of care to continue to provide exceptional patient care and experiences,” said Kuhn. “Our collaboration with Propeller Health will help us empower our COPD patients with health technology tools to help remove barriers to care, emphasize preventive care, and reduce hospital readmissions.”

Propeller Health, a ResMed company, is a leader in digital health and therapeutics for asthma and COPD. In over 150 peer-reviewed studies and articles, Propeller’s FDA-cleared and CE-marked Digital Therapeutics Platform has demonstrated improved quality of life and clinical outcomes while lowering healthcare costs.

“Collaborating with UC Davis Health demonstrates our continued commitment to patients as well as physicians by providing care-connected journeys and actionable insights to better manage chronic conditions,” said Susa Monacelli, general manager for Propeller Health.