The clinical need

Respiratory medicine is a priority for the healthcare system. Across the respiratory reports available in the UK, the most persistent system challenges relate to earlier and more accurate diagnosis, plus timely, proactive management to prevent deterioration. There is a strong emphasis on smoking cessation in the NHS, however, the role of air quality in respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma has not been considered as extensively. In recent years, research has increasingly highlighted that patients exposed to more air pollutants may require more frequent contact with healthcare services—such as GP reviews, prescriptions, urgent care visits, A&E attendances, and hospital admissions. This leads to a higher demand on NHS resources and worse outcomes for patients.

Project challenge

AirTrack is a digital tool created by Air Aware Labs, that helps people understand and reduce their exposure to air pollution in their day-to-day lives, using real-time, location-specific air quality data. Currently the team is exploring the business case for introducing AirTrack to the NHS. To support this, Air Aware Labs obtained Innovate UK support through the Business Growth scheme to build the evidence needed to support NHS adoption, including a robust value proposition for COPD and asthma pathways and an early economic assessment of the platform’s potential healthcare and cost-saving impact.

How did Medipex help?

• Conduct targeted research to link AirTrack’s functionalities to NHS priorities and key policies, identify key challenges in COPD and asthma management (including the impact of air pollution), and develop a robust value proposition to inform the structure of a cost-consequence model.
• Develop and analyse a cost-consequence model to evaluate AirTrack’s potential economic impact in COPD and asthma pathways and provide recommendations for future model development and application.

Impact

This project has taken forward considerably our understanding of the clinical pathways for asthma and COPD, how these are costed in the NHS and how to include our product as part of the cost structures. We have learnt how best to present the evidence linking health outcomes, air pollution and effectiveness of interventions to reduce exposure to pollution. The resulting model will be critical in taking forward our work with NHS partners and more widely. As a semi-independent and expert study with extensive references, it demonstrates credibility with partners and will enable us to enter new markets.

Louise Thomas, Co-founder and CEO

Client testimonial

The partnership with Medipex was excellent: our contact took time to get to know our needs, delve deep into the relevant literature and seek out expert inputs from the respiratory health sector. The model was fully explained so that we know how to amend inputs and assumptions in future, as we gain more data. The final report was balanced and professional, enabling us to use it with key company stakeholders, as well as with partners in the healthcare system. We would highly recommend working with this team.

Louise Thomas, Co-founder and CEO

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