Academic Researchers

Aseptika, is a  technology company that has developed an app called Asthma+me which helps children and their families self-manage their severe asthma.

The problem

In the UK there are 1.1 million children that have asthma and 110,000 have to be treated by paediatricians at specialist clinics.

Typical costs of managing children with severe asthma through outpatient appointments is in the region of £1,000 per year. Asthma+Me costs less than £500 per patient and this may prevent outpatient appointments or any unplanned A&E admissions.

The solution

The app allows the patient and/or the family to input information about their asthma and link up their inhalers. The app collects this information and helps educate the child and the family and can also help automatically warn them when an asthma attack is about to happen. With enough advanced warning, the aim is that families can act sooner and avoid visits to hospital, and we are starting to see this happen.

Parents also have the ability to immediately share their child’s data from their Smartphones with paediatricians, to get immediate medical advice.

It is now being trialled in Sheffield Children’s Hospital Trust.

How we are helping
We have supported Aseptika by providing funding to carry out an evaluation of Asthma+Me, with help from York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC), and are also helping the company to build up their evidence base for eventual spread across the region.

Kevin Auton, Managing Director of Aseptika, said: “Asthma is still the most common medical condition for children and young people in the UK, and is the number one reason for urgent admissions to hospital in England. There are still a small number of avoidable deaths in children and young people from asthma every year, meaning the UK has the third highest risk of death from childhood asthma in developed countries.’’