Synopsis:In the 3rd part of our 3-Part Series on Ways to Attack Pulmonary Vascular Disease, Stanford Pulmonary Hypertension specialists Drs. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, Edda Spiekerkoetter & Andrew Sweatt discuss the adult clinical approach and ways the Wall Center is fighting pulmonary hypertension across multiple fronts.

Vinicio de Jesus Perez, MD

Edda Spiekerkoetter, MD

Andrew John Sweatt, MD

Host: Welcome to the PH at Stanford Podcast. This new podcast series comes to you from the Vera Moulton Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease at Stanford, with the goal to eradicate pulmonary vascular disease by discovering fundamental causes, developing innovative therapies, disseminating crucial knowledge, and delivering transformative care. Today, is the 3rd in a three-part COVID-related series on Ways to Attack Pulmonary Vascular Disease. Stanford PH Drs. Vinicio de Jesus Perez, Edda Spiekerkoetter, and Andrew John Sweatt, discuss the adult clinical approach and ways the Wall Center is fighting pulmonary hypertension across multiple fronts.
Edda Spiekerkoetter, MD:My name is Dr. Edda Spiekerkoetter. I'm an adult pulmonologist at Stanford, and I'm treating patients with pulmonary hypertension and also have a basic research lab where I study the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension, right heart failure and vascular malformations in the lung.
Andrew John Sweatt, MD: Hi, I'm Dr. Andrew Sweatt. I'm also in the division of pulmonary and critical care at Stanford, treating adult patients with pulmonary hypertension and other general pulmonary conditions. And my clinical research focus is in pulmonary hypertension.
Vinicio de Jesus Perez, MD: My name is Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez. Like my colleagues, I'm an adult pulmonary critical care specialists and physician scientist with expertise in pulmonary arterial hypertension and other pulmonary vascular disorders. Today, we're going to talk to you about what the Stanford Pulmonary Hypertension Program is doing to fight pulmonary hypertension across three fronts. Number one, the repurposing of drugs, discovery of biomarker through omics technologies and the use of wearables for monitoring pulmonary hypertension patients.
I will start first by telling you about our work with wearables. This is work that has been done in partnership with our friends at phaware [global association], and it is a tool that will combine the use of the technology in the Apple watch together with an application developed with our colleagues at phaware, that will allow our patients to capture six minute walk data from the comfort of their living place, whether it's their home or their local park.
Now, why is this important? Well, many of us have been affected by the COVID epidemic. As you all know, when you visit your physician, one of the key tests that the physician will offer is the six minute walk test. Why? It tells us how well your heart and lungs are working together. It also tells us whether the medications and interventions that we are offering you are having the expected impact.
The problem being that with COVID is it has become incredibly hard to host patients in our clinic. The six minute walk test, is traditionally a test that has to be done in clinic under the supervision of a respiratory therapist and with a proper assessment of the pulmonary hypertension specialist. For many of us it's become very difficult to gauge how our patients are doing through video consultation in regards to the level of activity and how their medications are actually influencing that.
To overcome that barrier, phaware and our group have partnered to test this new app, which is the phaware Walk.Talk.Track™. This is actually an app that works with the Apple watch, and it links wirelessly with your Apple phone. What the app does is it actually instructs you on how to capture a six minute walk test from the comfort of your home or any place locally where you can actually walk. It's simple. The app allows you to initiate the test, capture your symptoms, and then it tells you to walk for six minutes. It tells you when to rest. Once you're done, that information is uploaded to a cloud. That information comes to us using sophisticated algorithms that we have been developing. We can capture these numbers, your symptoms at rest, how much you walk, your heart rate, the changes in your heart rate. And, this information is captured on a daily basis, or as frequently as you can do.
Now, why is that important? Because I'm not depending only on me seeing you every three months in order to know whether your functional capacity is improving or not, or maybe worsening. In an ideal situation where I have access to this technology, I can potentially identify a level of worsening that will prompt me to introduce a therapeutic intervention. For you, it means waiting less time in order to get the treatment that you require so that we can keep your...