ResMed and ATS Foundation award $100,000 to COPD digital health researcher

ResMed and ATS Foundation have awarded their third $100,000 Research Fellowship grant to Claude Farah, PhD, of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, to study how remote monitoring can help improve the management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

Claude Farah, PhD

The aim of Farah’s study is to detect early changes in lung function from daily recordings and notify patients when to commence more intensive treatment or seek medical attention. In his application, he predicts that “this intervention will reduce the chance of patients needing hospitalization for these lung attacks.”

To date, the burden has been on patients to identify their own symptom flare-ups. According to a 2014 ATS article “Exacerbation of COPD,” “Exacerbations can come on very quickly (hours to days), while finding out what causes the exacerbation can be a very slow process (up to a week)…. Thus, the best person to help identify an exacerbation early is you [the patient].”

This grant is important as it tests how integration of technology that enables convenient at-home remote monitoring of patients’ lung function helps with earlier detection and interventions of COPD exacerbations, aiming to prevent further deterioration in their condition. This grant will also help set the foundation for Dr. Farah’s future projects and opens the door for networking with leaders in the field.”

Mihaela Teodorescu, MD, MS, chair of the ATS Assembly on Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology

Remote monitoring has helped track and improve therapy for millions of patients with sleep apnea, heart disease, diabetes, and more. If it can help people with COPD stay out of the hospital more and/or delay the progression of their disease, that would mark a life-changing advancement in the treatment of this chronic disease, the world’s fourth leading killer.”

Carlos M. Nunez, MD, ResMed’s chief medical officer

More than 250 million people worldwide have COPD, according to the World Health Organization; estimated prevalence is as high as 380 million.

The application process for the next cycle of grant opportunities will open in Spring of 2020.