A study to examine whether an innovative mobile health (mHealth)-enabled care programme (MH-COPD) will improve the patient self-management and relevant health outcomes is being conducted by Hang Ding et all and its protocol was published on BMJOpen on 25th, April, 2019.

This study is prospective open randomized controlled trial has been designed. In the trial, 100 patients from The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane with COPD (postbronchodilator FEV1/ FVC<70% and FEV1 <80%, predicted, current or former smokers, with a smoking history of >10-pack years) will be recruited and follow up at 3 months and 6 months. The recruitment and follow-up of the trial will be from January 2019 to December 2020. In this study, the MH-COPD programme will implement an mHealth system as an intervention, in addition to usual care.

The mHealth system will comprise an Android smartphone application (app) and a secure online clinician portal for intervention group while participants in the usual care (UC-COPD) group will receive standard care from respiratory clinics and primary care, throughout the trial period. The primary outcome measures will be COPD symptom and quality of life, assessed by the CAT, SGRQ and mMRC questionnaires at the baseline and 6-month time point. The secondary outcomes will be patient adherence, physical activity, smoking cessation, use of COPD medicines, frequency of COPD exacerbations and hospital readmissions, and user experience of the mobile app

The study is expected to provide a unique opportunity to help understand the potential to use mHealth innovations to improve patient self-management and health outcomes, and hence add evidence for the effectiveness of using mHealth to improve COPD care in the community.

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