IT Innovation Contest

A team-based contest for creative IT solutions

Survivor's Mobile App

Proposal Status: 

Survivor Mobile Phone App

Description:

Improving outcomes of children diagnosed with cancer is one of the triumphs of modern medicine. At present, nearly 80% of children diagnosed with cancer will be long-term survivors. The Survivors of Childhood Cancer Program at UCSF provides comprehensive medical, nursing, and psychosocial consultation to provide education for childhood cancer survivors as well as their families and health care providers. A detailed history and physical examination is performed and a comprehensive summary letter of the survivor’s current and future health care follow-up recommendations is sent to the survivor’s primary care physician.

All survivors also receive an educational “Survivor Healthcare Passport” to provide a succinct, credit card-sized summary of their therapy and follow-up recommendations (see below).  The follow-up recommendations are individualized and are based on the therapy that the patient received.  In other words, different types of chemotherapy, surgery, and fields of radiation therapy trigger different types of follow-up tests and how often they are needed.  The follow-up recommendations are provided by the Children’s Oncology Group, a National Cancer Institute supported clinical trials group.  

Many patients find the “Survivor Healthcare Passport” very helpful due to its portability and concise nature.  However, some patients have expressed interest in having an interactive tool that can alert them about any follow-up tests they may be due for.

We propose to develop a mobile Survivors App as an additional tool to help cancer patients be aware of their recommended follow-up. Users will use the application to enter the details of the therapy they received such as the names and doses of chemotherapy, the types of surgeries, and the fields and doses of radiation therapy.  The application will then display the recommended follow-up based on the entered therapy. For example, if a user enters a cumulative dose of over 300 milligrams per meter squared of doxorubicin as part of his or her therapy, the application will indicate that an echocardiogram should be done annually. The application will hopefully be associated with a calendar which can alert users that they are due for specific follow-up tests. 

Impact: Could be used by all of our patients undergoing cancer therapy at UCSF and beyond.

Team Members:

Robert Goldsby, MD - Director of the Survivors of Childhood Cancer Program

Linda Li – Coordinator for the Survivors of Childhood Cancer Program

Benjamin Braun, MD, PhD – Pediatric Oncologist, Ancillary IT Input

Needed member – IT specialist to help convert the material into a mobile application

Comments

I wholeheartedly agree that a mobile technology to track therapies, follow-ups and maintaining general well-being is an imperative piece to the program we have. How will this be different than the CureSearch app that is currently available? In addition can psychological resources be made available to connect these survivors with support groups? I am excited to see how this idea develops and impacts the children, families and healthcare outcomes.

This proposal would help patients empower themselves to ensure that adequate follow up is maintained, which is especially important in cancer care. Integration with calendar/reminder would definitely increase the usefulness of the application, as well as integration of the educational material that is provided.

The mHealth Services group would be very interested in making this concept come to life.

I like the idea of framing the alerts like a to-do app, so users can mark recommended follow-up tests as either complete, or unnecessary (upon consultation with a doctor). How do you envision new data and alerts being entered into this system? Will they be added by health care providers, or by the patients themselves? If the latter, will there be a way for providers (or their EHR systems) to check (edit?) the results, to prevent user error?

Commenting is closed.