Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/UoXTh9OtlzA Electronically monitoring a child’s day-to-day breathing patterns and their responses to medicine improves asthma management.  Pediatricians at the University of Utah developed a smartphone app they call eAsthmaTracker and tested it with more than 300 children receiving care at 11 clinics statewide. The app tracks a child’s respiratory symptoms and peak flow rates and their impact on everyday activities permitting parents and clinicians to detect impending acute asthma attacks and use proactive medication adjustments to prevent or at least moderate such episodes.  Use of the app improved asthma control, reduced ED visits by 60%, diminished the need for rescue steroids by 35%, led to 60% fewer missed school days, and drove an improved quality of life. The Utah app is not yet ready for prime time, but the good news is that there are several free asthma tracking apps already available on the iOS and Android App stores.  These apps appear to provide some of the same tracking