Lastest ResMed Study Points to Importance of Self-Management Tools for Sleep Apnea

LOS ANGELES (October 25, 2016)—In a new research study being presented tomorrow at the CHEST 2016 annual meeting, ResMed will share evidence that people who use a self-management app when treating their sleep apnea with positive airway pressure (PAP) are significantly more likely to stick with their therapy.

The observational study included more than 128,000 people with sleep apnea whose devices allow for their therapy to be remotely monitored by their clinician and by the patients themselves via myAir, ResMed’s cognitive behavior–based patient engagement app for the web and iPhone.

More than 87 percent of PAP users were compliant on therapy when using ResMed’s myAir and monitored with AirView, compared to 70 percent compliance for those monitored by AirView alone (a 24 percent relative increase). While continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, the gold standard in treating sleep apnea, has vastly improved due to innovations in device comfort and ease-of-use, in general, CPAP adherence may still be as low as 50 percent without the use of wireless monitoring.

“This new study shows that online self-monitoring tools engage patients and significantly improve their compliance and adherence to treatment,” said ResMed Medical Director Adam Benjafield, Ph.D. “While our study focused on PAP users, we believe these results may be generalized more broadly in terms of the role online tools can have in improving medical treatment compliance overall.”

“Half of all patients don’t take their medications as prescribed, and we know that same statistic holds true for compliance with PAP therapy for sleep apnea,” said Benjafield. “The effects of poor treatment adherence are profound, not only for the number of people suffering due to poor medication adherence, but also in terms of emergency room visits, hospitalizations and their financial burden to the health care system.”

About myAir
myAir is available on the web and via an iPhone app to patients using ResMed’s Air10 devices. myAir allows people to track the progress of their therapy between visits to their clinician, including a simple daily sleep score, details on four key treatment metrics and personalized coaching tips.

As a companion to AirView, ResMed’s cloud-based tool for health care professionals, myAir reinforces the efforts of clinicians and helps patients keep themselves informed and motivated, factors long considered to play a role in effective treatment of sleep apnea and other medical conditions.

Clinicians view myAir as a powerful tool for reducing the risks and costs associated with these health problems for their sleep apnea patients. Every day, 1,000 new patients sign up for myAir.

“Our patients engage with their therapy so much more after joining myAir, since it is easy to use and understand the data,” said John Quinlan, owner of Quinlan’s Pharmacy and Medical Equipment in Upstate New York. “When more engagement leads to better compliance, I think equipment providers everywhere should encourage their patients to use tools such as myAir.”

Study details
This retrospective, observational study was designed to minimize risks of potential bias due to differences between the myAir and AirView-only groups that affect outcome variables by matching patients on propensity score. There were 128,037 patients in the study cohort. Patients in both groups were effectively treated with PAP therapy over the 90 days.

There was a significant improvement in the percent of patients that reached Medicare adherence within 90 days (87.3 percent for myAir patients vs. 70.4 percent for AirView-only patients, with a p value less than 0.0001), showing an absolute 16.9 percent improvement (a relative 24 percent improvement) in adherence. Additionally mean daily PAP usage was also significantly higher in myAir patients compared to AirView-only (5.9 hours vs. 4.9 hours, respectively).

The study will be presented on October 26, 2016, at the CHEST Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.

Visit resmed.com for more information.