Electronic health (e-Health): emerging role in asthma

Asthma is the most prevalent chronic respiratory disease and represents a relevant socioeconomic burden. e-Health has the potential to improve disease control and adherence to treatment in asthmatic patients. Available data are, however, scarce and inconsistent limiting the use of e-health in clinical practice. This article aims to provide a systematic review of the literature published in the last year regarding the real place and impact of e-health in the management of asthma.

Despite few conflicting results, collected findings support a beneficial effect of e-health on asthma management and control, as well as positive patients' acceptance and satisfaction. Included studies mainly assessed m-health, telemedicine, electronic health record and digital app interventions, in both adults and children. Existing evidence appears however to be only of moderate quality and high heterogeneity was found in the study endpoints and designs.

There is the need to establish widely adopted standards for conducting trials and reporting results in e-health. These should include minimal clinical difference assessment and prevent potential pitfalls such as patient privacy protection, data fishing and lack of compliance of interventions with evidence-based medicine, guideline recommendations and regulatory board statements.