The Healthhub apps have been featured in a BBC Wales article.

 

The article was part of a wider piece on how Healthcare apps are being used across Wales to help reduce pressure on NHS frontline services and reduce hospital visits as patients receive care at home in a timely manner.

The Welsh government expects to spend £65m on digital health and social care solutions this year.

Asthma sufferer, Alice Spencer, said the app helps her to predict and prevent an attack which can be “debilitating”.

She was diagnosed with asthma 10 years ago, which affects her ability to exercise and can be impacted by different types of weather.

The apps use bespoke tools to help patients manage their Asthma and COPD. It gives Alice a simple way to spot when her asthma control is getting worse, so she can start taking proactive steps to prevent a severe asthma attack. It records everything that’s important about Alice’s asthma in a personalised care plan, and features lots of really useful advice from asthma experts from NHS Wales about how to stay well with Asthma.

 

“It’s made a big difference. It means I’m less likely to need to see a GP before I get sick,” she said.

 

The article comes as a result of the survey conducted on users (more than 10,000).

All active users of the app were given the chance to complete the survey to provide feedback on how successfully the app has helped them improve their management of their condition.

The key findings of the survey have found that people with respiratory conditions (asthma or COPD) who regularly use the Healthub apps for more than 6 months improve their respiratory health, resulting in 36% of users reducing their visits to the GP and 19% reducing their admissions to A&E

We also found that, those users who were not achieving good control of their condition (suboptimal control) prior to using the app (users who have scored their control less than 5 on a scale of 10) and regularly use the apps for more than 6 months have a more significant improvement in their wellness, resulting in 44% of users reducing their visits to the GP and 33% reducing their admissions to A&E.