Healthentia has recently published two papers on the topic of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) exacerbation management, highlighting innovative approaches to real-time detection and risk prediction using digital health tools and machine learning. You can read the full publications here: 10.1109/ICHI64645.2025.00109 & https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.congress-2024.PA2319
Real-Time Exacerbation Detection
Using the Healthentia app, patients complete a daily symptom questionnaire (DSQ) covering COPD and comorbid conditions like heart failure and anxiety. The algorithm scores symptoms and classifies patients into Stable, Unstable, or Exacerbation states, triggering notifications for patients and alerts for clinicians.
- Study across three European sites (232 patients, 656 days average use) detected 238 exacerbation events.
- Validation showed 46% of emergency visits and 32% of hospitalizations aligned with algorithm-detected exacerbations.
- Key challenge: patient adherence affects detection reliability, highlighting the need for user-friendly engagement.
Predicting Future Exacerbation Risk: RE‑SAMPLE
The RE-SAMPLE platform uses federated learning to train machine learning models across hospitals without sharing raw data. It integrates app-collected real-world data and clinical records to provide personalized risk predictions on a clinician dashboard.
- Simple predictors like prior exacerbations achieved 75% accuracy.
- Supports shared decision-making, empowering clinicians and patients with actionable insights.
- Maintains privacy and security, crucial for real-world implementation.
Why It Matters
- Early warnings help prevent severe exacerbations and reduce hospitalizations.
- Federated ML enables collaborative model training while protecting patient data.
- Real-world data integration captures the complexity of multi-morbid patients.
- Actionable insights support personalized care plans and patient engagement.
Looking Ahead
Future improvements may include better adherence strategies, wearable integration, richer predictive models, larger trials, and targeted behavioral interventions — all moving toward proactive, patient-centered COPD care.
Healthentia’s work demonstrates how real-time monitoring and predictive analytics together can transform COPD management, giving patients and clinicians the tools to act earlier and smarter.
