People using a self-management app during positive airway pressure (PAP) for sleep therapy are far more likely to stick with their therapy, according to an retrospective, observational study included more than 128,000 people conducted by sleep therapy device maker ResMed. This is the world’s largest study on connected care and seep apnea to date.

Sleep apnea patients using devices that let themselves, as well as clinicians monitor (remote monitoring in the case of clinicians) their progress with their therapy via myAir (myair.resmed.com), ResMed’s cognitive behavior– based patient engagement app for the web and iPhone, performed better than otherwise.

Specifically, more than 87 percent of PAP users complied with their therapy when using ResMed’s myAir and monitored by AirView (bit.ly/resmedairview), compared to 70 percent compliance for users being monitored by AirView alone (a 24 percent relative increase), according to ResMed.

Furthermore, while ResMed noted that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy has “vastly” improved thanks to improved device comfort and ease of use, CPAP adherence can 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,” he continued.. “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 healthcare system.”

“Our patients engage with their therapy so much more after joining myAir, since it’s easy to use and understand the data,” said John Quinlan, owner of Quinlan’s Pharmacy and Medical Equipment (Wayland , N.Y.). “When more engagement leads to better compliance, I think equipment providers everywhere should encourage their patients to use tools like myAir.”

To give an idea of how large the issue of problem of poor therapy compliance has become, the New England Healthcare Institute determined in 2009 that lack of adherence or poor adherence was costing an estimated $290 billion annually in the United States. By limiting the management and control of chronic illnesses, poor compliance results in otherwise preventable disease progression, hospitalizations, and doctor and emergency room visits.

More details about the study:

• There were 128,037 patients in the study cohort.
• This 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.
• Patients in both groups were effectively treated with PAP therapy over the 90 days.
• ResMed noted there was a “significant” improvement in the percentage of patients that attained 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.