Smart Air Quality Prescription System BreatheAir Pilot: Custom Outdoor Routes for Asthma Patients

BreatheAir, jointly released by Amsterdam University Medical Centers and air quality platform AirCare, customizes daily outdoor activity routes for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. The system integrates satellite air quality monitoring, real-time urban pollution source data, and individual medical records to generate walking, cycling, and commuting recommendations most suited to the patient's condition on that day.

The core of BreatheAir is a personalized exposure model. The system combines the patient's medical record (allergens, prior attack patterns, lung function baseline) with real-time street-level air quality data to calculate an exposure score for each feasible route. The score comprehensively considers factors such as PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and pollen concentration, with different weights for patients with different conditions. For example, for patients with pollen allergies, the weight of pollen concentration is higher than for common pollutant gases.

The pilot was conducted in three Dutch cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht, involving 1,800 asthma patients. Six-month tracking results show that patients using BreatheAir experienced a 42 percent reduction in acute exacerbations compared to the control group, and a 31 percent reduction in outpatient visits. Professor Anke-Hilse Maitland-van der Zee of pulmonology at Amsterdam UMC said this kind of digital therapy has the potential to become a standard adjunct in respiratory medicine, complementing traditional inhaled medications. The system will be offered free of charge to Dutch patients, with a B2B version licensed to hospitals in other European cities.