Remote Healthcare Monitoring Company PMD Creates CF and PF Patient Advisory Boards

A company that provides remote monitoring of patients’ health conditions has created patient and caregiver advisory boards for the lung conditions cystic fibrosis and pulmonary fibrosis.

PMD Healthcare, which describes itself as a digital health and care management company, said CF and PF board members’ perspectives will help it do a better job of addressing the care and living challenges that patients face.

PMD developed a widely used device known as the Spiro PD for monitoring CF patients’ lung function remotely.

The company plans to share with board members any information it obtains about the changes taking place in healthcare regulations and insurance coverage — which could affect their lives. And it wants members’ opinions on the changes.

The boards will meet several times a year through online conferencing, with each meeting running about an hour. Participants will be paid. They will also have a chance to become what PMD calls “thought leaders” by sharing their opinions in blogs, podcasts, videos, and social media.

“Working directly with CF and PF patients and their caregivers will enable us to better understand, and meet the needs of, patients — in terms of education, new product development and support services,” Steve Sullivan, a PMD Healthcare executive vice president, said in a press release.

The company is looking for people who want to be on either the CF patient advisory board or PF patient advisory board. It expects the first meeting of each to be in February or March.

The Spiro PD that PMD developed was the first personal spirometer to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. A spirometer measures how much and how fast someone can move air out of their lungs.

Since the approval in 2011, the personal spirometer has become the standard for remote monitoring of lung function in people with CF or those who have had lung transplant surgery.

A PMD study in 2017 concluded that children with CF who used the Spiro PD device reported better lung function.