EPIDIA: an App to to assist physicians in the care of patients with interstitial lung diseases

Abstract

Introduction: Interstitial lung diseases (ILD) is an umbrella term used for a large group of diseases that may cause scarring (fibrosis) of the lung.They represent a very large group of more than 200 different entities, many of which are rare or "orphan" diseases. Although current guidelines emphasize multidisciplinary discussion (MDD) as the gold standard for the diagnosis of ILD, MDD is not always available in clinical practice. Besides, there is a significant diagnostic delay and misdiagnosis of ILD at primary health care level.

Objective: Introduce a software application for mobile devices to assist physicians in the care of ILD patients.

Methods: We developed an app called EPIDIA, a tool where the physician enters different elements of the medical history, pulmonary function tests, images and pathological features of a hypothetical patient and the system provides one or two diagnostic options as well as the prognosis according to validated scores for idiopatic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). It has also the “treatment”, “monitoring” and “library” sections.

Results: EPIDIA was released on November 24th,2020 in Argentina and, until February 12nd, they were documented 173 users and 1290 access.Of the users, 84% were pulmonary physicians, 5% rheumatologists, 5% clinicians and 6% others. Seventy percent of the users had more than 10 years of clinical experience, 20% between 5 and 10 and 10% less than 10 years. In regard to workplace, 52% of the users were from public hospitals, 30% from private attendance and 18% from private hospitals.

Conclusion: We are introducing the first App to quickly and effectively look up for the most relevant aspects in ILD.