RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Effectiveness of the eCARE programme: a short message service for asthma monitoring
JF BMJ Health & Care Informatics
JO BMJ Health Care Inform
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP e100007
DO 10.1136/bmjhci-2019-100007
VO 26
IS 1
A1 Lathy Prabhakaran
A1 Yap Chun Wei
YR 2019
UL http://informatics.bmj.com/content/26/1/e100007.abstract
AB Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of the upgraded eCARE monitoring system on asthma control in discharged emergency department (ED) patients.Methods A multicentre randomised controlled study (randomised controlled trial) was done for patients with a primary diagnosis of asthma seen at the EDs in Singapore between 1 March 2013 and 28 February 2015. Those who met the inclusion criteria were randomised into a control group (routine care, n=212) and intervention group (eCARE, n=212). Patients in the intervention group received short message service (SMS) messages according to a structured workflow, while patients in the control group did not receive SMS support.Results For patients with poorly controlled asthma at recruitment, the results at 5 weeks showed no statistical difference in the proportion of patients who attained well-controlled asthma between the eCARE and routine care groups. At 3 months, the routine care group had a higher proportion of patients with well-controlled asthma but this was not statistically significant after adjustment for baseline differences using logistic regression. Approximately 95% of patients under the eCARE programme were satisfied with the SMS service.Discussion Patients in the eCARE programme did not have better asthma control than those receiving routine care. Conversely, patients in the eCARE programme appeared to have poorer asthma control, though a larger sample size will be required to confirm this finding.