Supervisor View 2

My WorkWorking to bring digital technology to healthcare the joint RCSI and TCD INCA team (www.incadevice.com) is a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, nurses, engineers, biostatisticians and psychologists.

The INCA technology uses digital audio to assess when and how an inhaler was used. The team have developed technologies to quantify adherence to inhalers, inhaler technique and lung function. We have used this information to develop strategies to improve medication adherence, a training that research students from all disciplines have found rewarding . Our studies also focus on understanding the relationship between disease progress and medication use.

In prior studies in the community, as well as among patients attending specialist clinics we have identified that both adherence and inhaler technique are poor. Poor adherence is far from a patient’s fault rather, its a duty of the team prescribing the therapy to devise systems to ensure that the patient is given the opportunity to . Hence, another aspect of work being performed by the INCA team is to understand the deficit in the care system that leads to poor adherence.

Digital technology offers a lot of promise to improve healthcare, our team aims to deliver this promise. We believe that this area of work would be of interest to future clinical leaders who have an interest in how digital technology and influence healthcare.