LifeMap Solutions Announces COPD Navigator App Available for Free Download

LifeMap Solutions recently announced that its free iOS app, COPD Navigator is now available for download on iTunes. An enhanced version branded as SuperCare iBreathe, deployed by SuperCare Health, will also soon be released. LifeMap, a digital-health arm of BioTime, Inc., developed the app in close collaboration with researchers and renowned pulmonologists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute. The app was designed to empower chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients by helping them to better manage and monitor their illness and symptoms. This venture marks the first commercial revenue by LifeMap Solutions, with undisclosed financial details.

“LifeMap Solutions is dedicated to building mobile health (or mHealth) apps that positively, powerfully affect patients’ quality of life,” stated Corey Bridges, CEO of LifeMap Solutions in a press release. “We’ve built our first two apps to help sufferers of asthma and COPD, and we’re working to expand our impact across a wider range of chronic conditions. With COPD Navigator, we’re aiming not only to empower patients to manage their own health more easily, but also to engage more deeply with their care providers. We believe that the key to this is COPD Navigator’s summary screens for patients’ health data. Just as happened with the Doctor Dashboard feature in our Asthma Health app, patients will show COPD Navigator to their doctors and initiate data-driven conversations. And through our partner SuperCare Health, we’re gratified to deploy our technology directly into a patient-care setting.”

The new iBreath app is customized with data collection points and allows SuperCare Health to track and respond in-real-time to COPD patients who are enrolled in their Healthcare at Home program.

According to LifeMap Solutions, the COPD Navigator follows evidence-based guidelines and patient data together with behavioral science to better serve users at a lower cost. Users receive local weather and air quality alerts, medication reminders and other features to monitor their symptoms with the goal of recognizing if the patient is suffering from a COPD exacerbation, a sudden worsening in their lung condition. The app also empowers patients to share their information with healthcare physicians and care teams. This feature has the potential to help patients avoid expensive local emergencies, if patients are able to manage their exacerbations from home with their doctor’s guidance.

“Ongoing guidance and insight from care teams amplify the benefits gained from using self-management tools, which is why an effective mHealth solution has to cater to both patients and care teams to maximize value,” explained Charles Powell, MD and CEO of Mount Sinai – National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute. “With COPD Navigator, patients can easily share their self-reported health information with care teams to address exacerbations in their conditions at home under proper guidance, potentially preventing expensive emergency room visits or inpatient hospital stays.”

COPD is estimated to affect more than 24 million people in the U.S. alone, and direct and indirect costs nearly reached $50 billion in 2010 according to the American College of Chest Physicians. With the goal of reducing these expenses, LifeMap Solutions partners with paying commercial entities such as SuperCare Health to deploy COPD Navigator to patients in more clinical settings.

“SuperCare Health has demonstrated that a high-touch and high-tech, unique approach to chronic care management truly helps COPD patients avoid hospital visits through better management of their condition,” noted John Cassar, CEO of SuperCare Health. “Our collaboration with LifeMap Solutions has empowered us to deliver the enhanced iBreathe app, the perfect mHealth complement to our COPD management programs.”