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A technological solution will allow for closer and closer monitoring of patients to understand how the pandemic has affected their pathology.
The initiative is the result of the agreement between the Aragón Health Research Institute and the biopharmaceutical research company AbbVie
The Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) has signed a collaboration agreement with the biopharmaceutical company AbbVie Spain to develop a technological solution in order to monitor the measurement of the problems that the patient with psoriasis suffers during the COVID-19 pandemic, within a framework of continuous healthcare improvement, since it allows closer tracking and close to the sick.
The agreement consists of launching a basic platform (Front End) to support the Psoriasis Unit of the Miguel Servet Hospital in Zaragoza, which will make it easier to know what the main problems of patients with psoriasis are due to the health crisis, implement strategies to provide solutions to the problems detected and evaluate their effect. Under this agreement, AbbVie, dedicated to biopharmaceutical research, will make a financial contribution of 14.000 euros.
The person responsible for the project is Dr. Yolanda Gilaberte, who directs the 'Research and Innovation in Dermatology Miguel Servet (INNDerma MS)' group at IIS Aragón. “At this time, it is essential to undertake a technological project in order to detect the problems that have arisen for patients as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, undertake improvement actions and evaluate the result of the actions taken to correct them,” says Gilaberte.
The collateral effects of the pandemic
The Psoriasis Unit of the Dermatology Service of the Miguel Servet University Hospital consists of two consultations, on a weekly basis, carried out by two specialists, doctors Estrella Simal and Ana Morales Callaghan, who have extensive experience in the treatment of psoriasis. These consultations stopped being in person last March and became telephone consultations until early May, when visits resumed but with a smaller number of patients to avoid crowding in health centers.
Faced with this new situation, professionals detected that many patients had spontaneously abandoned the treatment, without consulting their dermatologist, for fear that its use would make them more susceptible to COVID-19 infection, while those who followed the treatment did not. They carried out the corresponding analyzes for fear of going to their health centers. Their comorbidities, very common in this pathology, could not be attended to regularly in Primary Care, Rheumatology, Digestive, Endocrine, etc., which can cause worsening, with the repercussions that this has for psoriasis.
Likewise, some patients had missed a check-up appointment at their dermatologist and, on occasions, and despite all the facilities and actions of the Pharmacy Service, access to biological treatments has been more complicated. In addition, some of the psoriasis patients had suffered from COVID-19, which could have had a negative effect on their disease.
