Mount Sinai and LifeMap Solutions Announce Initial Results for Asthma Health App and New Features to Enhance Clinical Impact
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and LifeMap Solutions, a digital-health subsidiary of BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX), today announced initial results and new clinical features for their free Asthma Health app. Released six months ago, the app enables individuals with asthma to participate in a large-scale medical research study by simply using their Apple iPhones. The app’s newest features—the “Doctor Dashboard” and integration with Epic, the popular electronic health records (EHR) system—will help enable Asthma Health study participants to use the app with their physicians.
“We are delighted with the initial results we’ve seen after six months of using Apple’s ResearchKit framework for our Asthma Health app,” said Eric Schadt, PhD, the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Founding Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology. “We recruited and enrolled over 8,600 research participants in our study, remotely via the Asthma Health app without direct, in-person, contact. The breadth, depth, and quality of the data we’ve obtained, in one of the largest real-world epidemiological studies of asthma, has exceeded our expectations. Our experience demonstrates why mobile apps are fundamentally transforming medical research.”
“Studying the rich data from thousands of participants, we have found some preliminary but fascinating patterns regarding the usage of the app and activity level data collected from surveys and HealthKit. Also, our patients’ asthma triggers, medication usage, and clinical outcomes are of great interest,” said Yu-Feng Yvonne Chan, MD, PhD, Director of Digital Health and Personalized Medicine at the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at Mount Sinai. “Further, many of our study participants wrote to inform us that the app was serving as more than a research tool, or an educational tool, but was actually helping them better understand and manage their condition and feel better overall. This potential positive impact of our research study on the participants has inspired our team to introduce new features and enhancements to the Asthma Health app.”
Corey Bridges, CEO of LifeMap Solutions, explained. “We learned that some app users were showing their historical health data, as displayed in Asthma Health, to their doctors, in order to start very information-rich conversations. Inspired by these stories, we worked closely with our Mount Sinai colleagues to build an even more useful feature—the new Doctor Dashboard. Now, the patient just presses a button in the app and hands their iPhone to their provider. Within seconds, any provider can get a sense of the patient's recent asthma condition, symptom control, and activity. Any patient can show their Doctor Dashboard to any care provider, anywhere.”
Bridges continued, “We’ve also integrated Asthma Health with Epic, the popular electronic health records (EHR) system, so that pulmonologists at Mount Sinai can order and obtain data from the Asthma Health app for their patients who are using it.”
“At Mount Sinai, we are working with our Respiratory Institute co-investigators to pilot the integration of data from the Asthma Health app with our Epic EHR system,” said Dr. Chan. “We believe that the addition of rich, longitudinal data from our asthma patients into their electronic health records may be of great value to the pulmonologists and other clinicians providing care. Over time, we plan to expand this EHR integration at Mount Sinai.”
Said Bridges, “We’re thrilled and humbled that our research app is being utilized in this way. We look forward to helping other care providers and medical centers around the country do the same, to benefit as many asthma patients as possible. And we’re incorporating the learnings from Asthma Health into our future digital health apps.”
The Asthma Health app is available for free download in the Apple App Store; for more information visit http://icahn.mssm.edu/asthmaapp.
Other Epic community members can learn more about how LifeMap and Mount Sinai’s Asthma Health app integrates with the Epic EHR and how they can leverage the app to collect asthma data from their own patients by viewing this document on the Epic UserWeb.
About LifeMap Solutions, Inc.
LifeMap Solutions is developing innovative digital health products in partnership with the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, which is located within the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. LifeMap digital therapeutic solutions integrate health and wellness information with care team guidance into a secure mHealth platform that empowers the patient to make better choices to achieve optimal health outcomes. LifeMap Solutions is a subsidiary of BioTime, Inc. LifeMap Solutions is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.lifemap-solutions.com.
About BioTime, Inc.
BioTime, Inc., a pioneer in regenerative medicine, is a clinical-stage biotechnology company. BioTime and its subsidiaries are leveraging their industry-leading experience in pluripotent stem cell technology and a broad intellectual property portfolio to facilitate the development and use of cell-based therapies and gene marker-based molecular diagnostics for major diseases and degenerative conditions for which there presently are no cures. The lead clinical programs of BioTime and its subsidiaries include: OpRegen®, currently in a Phase I/IIa trial for the treatment of the dry form of age-related macular degeneration; AST-OPC1, currently in a Phase I/IIa trial for spinal cord injuries; Renevia™, currently in a pivotal trial in Europe as an injectable matrix for the engraftment of transplanted cells to treat HIV-related lipoatrophy; and cancer diagnostics, nearing the completion of initial clinical studies for the detection of lung, bladder, and breast cancers. AST-VAC2, a cancer vaccine, is in the pre-clinical trial stage.
BioTime’s subsidiaries include: publicly traded Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE MKT: AST), developing pluripotent stem cell-based therapies in neurology and oncology, including AST-OPC1 and AST-VAC2 ; Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd., developing stem cell-based therapies for retinal and neurological disorders, including OpRegen®; OncoCyte Corporation, developing cancer diagnostics; LifeMap Sciences, Inc., developing and marketing an integrated online database resource for biomedical and stem cell research; LifeMap Solutions, Inc., developing mobile health (mHealth) products; ES Cell International, Pte Ltd., which has developed cGMP compliant human embryonic stem cell lines that are being marketed by BioTime for research purposes under the ESI BIO branding program; OrthoCyte Corporation, developing therapies to treat orthopedic disorders, diseases and injuries; and ReCyte Therapeutics, Inc., developing therapies to treat a variety of cardiovascular and related ischemic disorders.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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