Home-based Digital Assessments with Applied Sentiment & Emotion AI Capture Improved Quality-of-life in Asthma Patients.

With the rise of digital transformation in the pharmaceutical industry, digital therapeutics are being integrated in drug development clinical trials. In the TWINKLE study, information about asthmatic patients' disease control and quality-of-life (QoL) was measured by daily video recording, in conjunction with daily electronic questionnaires and home-based spirometry. From the video messages, sentiment and emotion AI was applied to detect subtle QoL changes in asthmatic patients after receiving treatments. Sentiment scores, derived from patients' daily messages via natural language processing, correlated strongly with metrics of lung functions and outcomes of electronic questionnaires. However, video-derived emotional analysis exhibited strong interpersonal variations and systematic biases, yet still showed utility in detecting QoL changes after personalized calibration and signal aggregation. Compared to traditional patient-reported outcomes, all three categories of digital measurements were able to detect significantly improved asthma control from patients who responded to treatments. The result provides insights into developing novel digital outcomes through the application of connected digital devices and advanced AI tailored to clinical settings.Clinical relevance- Digital outcomes involving connected digital devices and AI for sentiment/emotion analysis could capture subtle QoL changes reliably and earlier than hospital visits, reducing burden and improving disease management. Integrating digital therapeutics in asthma drug development trials may prove to be feasible and valuable.

A novel automated SARS-CoV-2 saliva PCR test protects a global asymptomatic workforce.

Regular PCR testing of nasopharyngeal swabs from symptomatic individuals for SARS-CoV-2 virus has become the established method by which health services are managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses such as AstraZeneca have also prioritised voluntary asymptomatic testing to keep workplaces safe and maintain supply of essential medicines to patients. We describe the development of an internal automated SARS-CoV-2 testing programme including the transformative introduction of saliva as an alternative sample type.

Patterns of oral care in dental school and general dental practice.

This study compared patterns of oral care provided by predoctoral dental students for patients seeking treatment at the University of Washington (UW) with patterns reported for general dental offices by the Washington Dental Service (WDS). Dental care included about 5 million services provided to 880,317 patients by 2,803 WDS general dentists and about 45,600 dental services provided to 9,488 patients by 155 UW dental students during 1999. There was high fidelity between databases and randomly surveyed patient records for treatment provided in both UW (95 percent) and WDS (97 percent) populations. While patient age patterns were generally similar, UW students completed more procedures for young children and for adults older than seventy-four years but completed fewer procedures for age groups of from thirteen to eighteen and from forty-five to fifty-four than general dental offices. The relative mix of all services completed by UW and WDS providers was similar (ANOVA, P=0.82). Within categories of service, the percentage of total services completed by students compared to those submitted by community dentists to WDS was about the same for examinations, radiographs, fluoride and sealants, amalgams, composites, single crowns, and endodontics. The percentage of total procedures completed showed a greater emphasis by UW students on inlays/onlays, dentures, extractions, and periodontal maintenance, and lesser experience with implants, orthodontics, sedation, and emergency procedures than general dental offices. We conclude that the relative distribution of clinical services provided by UW dental students is comparable to those procedures reported to WDS by dental offices in the adjacent community.