Kry, Europe’s leading digital healthcare provider, is launching several digital-first pathways to transform approaches for early diagnosis, prevention and management for people living with chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) such as asthma, COPD and lung cancer.

With an estimated 235 million people suffering from asthma, and more than 200 million people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) worldwide, integrated digital healthcare can complement and improve primary care access for testing and early diagnosis. 

Lukas Didon, VP of Commercial and Partnerships at Kry said: “Despite millions of people suffering from chronic respiratory disease globally, we’re still seeing too many emergency admissions and deaths. We believe digital care can play a vital role in opening up new treatment pathways, targeting patients with earlier intervention and providing around-the-clock monitoring and continuous support for sustainable wellbeing and lifestyle changes. 

“With every pathway personalised to the patient’s needs, we hope to improve the quality of care and reduce the need for costly hospital interventions. In the long term this will reduce the burden on our healthcare systems, and keep patients healthier for longer”. 

In the UK, there are an estimated 1.2 million people living with COPD and it accounts for one in eight emergency hospital admissions in the UK with costs totalling close to £2 billion per year. Globally, COPD is the third largest cause of death with 3.2 million people dying in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. 

Through Kry’s market-leading practice management service, Mjog, healthcare practices can send targeted COPD patient questionnaires directly to the patient via a secure link, which can help clinicians’ capture information about a patient’s overall health, as well as monitor specific symptoms such as breathlessness.  In addition, Kry’s video, telephone consultations and text messaging services, enable clinicians to follow up and monitor patients on an ongoing basis, helping instil a culture of self-management and patient self-care. 

In the UK, digital asthma review programmes are also being expanded via Mjog, with the aim of supporting over 1 million patients. The phased programme will help to monitor and improve disease management for patients with uncontrolled asthma to prevent avoidable visits to A&E. This first-of-a-kind scalable programme will focus on boosting prevention in line with the NHS’s Long Term Plan. 

In Sweden, improving access to national screening programs for lung cancer is crucial in encouraging better prevention through early detection and intervention. Kry is developing an end-to-end testing and diagnostic solution which will track and trace patients, helping them be assessed more quickly, providing earlier intervention and increasing much needed capacity in primary care. In 2020, there were more than 2.2 million new cases of lung cancer globally. 

Kalle Conneryd-Lundgren, Chief Operations Officer Kry: “With an ageing population and prevalent chronic disease, healthcare systems across Europe are facing major challenges. Healthcare is incredibly complex to navigate and patients are being shuffled between care providers, leading to late diagnosis and poorer preventative strategies. This is where digital can help- by connecting the dots to integrate digital and physical care provision sooner and more efficiently.  With our new approaches we’re in a leading position to deliver proactive and preventative healthcare to boost capacity and enable millions more patients to be treated efficiently.”

The new solutions will be scaled later this year with partners in the UK, Sweden, France and Norway.