How the Digital Health Passport is Transforming Asthma Care with Kate Cheema, UCLPartners

Up, Up and Away - the digital health podcast

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In this episode of the Up Up and Away podcast, host Dom Burch welcomes Kate Cheema, Director of Evaluation and Insight at UCLPartners. With over 17 years in NHS data analysis and patient safety, Kate offers a deep dive into the transformative power of data and AI in healthcare, describing her work as “turning all this nerdy gold into something meaningful for people working directly with patients”.
Kate describes her passion for data analysis, embracing her role in transforming vast datasets into valuable insights that directly support healthcare professionals. Rather than simply accumulating data, her team's mission is to make this information actionable, providing clarity and direction to those in patient-facing roles. She explains that the integration of AI and new data tools is revolutionising how healthcare can utilise its full data potential, beyond traditional structured formats, making this an exhilarating time for health innovation.
Focusing on asthma management, she highlights the substantial financial burden of uncontrolled asthma, emphasising that solutions like the Digital Health Passport (DHP) not only improve patient outcomes but also offer significant cost savings by helping patients better manage their conditions. The DHP’s tracking feature, highly valued by users, fosters a sense of empowerment and control, transforming routine health data into a daily tool for self-management.
By targeting young people and underserved communities, Kate reveals the DHP for asthma has demonstrated a 2.24-point improvement in asthma control, which she notes is both statistically significant and practically impactful. She emphasises the empowering nature of the DHP, saying, “Knowledge is power, and having that in the palm of your hand gives a sense of control”.
Kate also discusses the broader potential of AI in healthcare, describing it as an “exciting time to be alive” as unstructured data becomes actionable through advanced text analysis tools, making patient voices central to healthcare improvements. Her team, she explains, acts as a “translator,” bridging data insights with real-world applications, from clinical settings to patient self-management.
The Digital Health Passport's role in reducing emergency visits and improving asthma self-management also promises a significant cost-saving, with an ROI of £9.28 for every £1 spent, illustrating the financial and healthcare benefits of data-informed innovation. As Kate succinctly puts it, “Uncontrolled asthma is really expensive… Anything that helps people move into a more controlled space will save potentially very significant sums of money”.
Kate's podcast offers insights for healthcare innovators and underscores the profound impact of data on patient well-being, affirming the role of tools like the DHP in improving health outcomes and accessibility.
Her optimism shines through, as she expresses hope for a healthcare landscape increasingly informed by rigorous data analysis and patient-centred innovations.