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by Darryl Wilkinson
Describing pain to someone else isn’t easy. Even if it’s your doctor, maybe especially when it’s your doctor doing the asking. It’s always a question of degree and, really, other than yourself, what’s there to compare to?
There is, of course, the “Happy Face” chart. The progression of expressions from sad to happy is designed for children but still leaves a semi-literate adult like me confused. When I first confronted a happy chart, it was prior to what lead to my first back surgery. I felt a little silly talking to a nurse as she encouraged me to pick a face on the chart, a chart that appeared to be left over from some little tyke’s visit with the doctor.
Pain clouds all judgment. But I remember wondering, do I really want to approach a doctor holding a scalpel in his hand to talk about happy faces? I mean, really?
But, once again, I read how it’s technology to the rescue. Smart-phone apps are about to revolutionize medical care.
The hype claims your smart phone can predict when cancer patients are about to relapse, detect rare side effects of experimental drugs, and prod patients to maintain healthy behaviors.
One of these new apps is called Moovcare. It is created by an Israeli e-health company. It enables lung-cancer patients to log symptoms after surgery or chemotherapy to receive follow-ups and set automatic reminders. Whenever the patient logs a specific change in symptoms, the app sends an email to his or her physician and treatment plans are quickly adjusted, and the app helps predict the likelihood of relapse.
Moovcare’s health benefits have proven remarkable in initial studies. An independent study published last year by French researchers found that the median overall survival rate of patients who used the Moovcare app was 19 months, versus 12 months for those on standard care. After one year, 75% of patients following up with Moovcare were still alive, compared to 49% in the standard follow-up group.
What’s more, these new apps also track participants’ eating, sleeping, and exercise patterns. That’s important for researchers to get a 360-degree view of patients’ health. And, in gathering such information, comparisons can be made.
App-based studies can collect data from millions of participants worldwide, compared to a few thousand patients in most traditional clinical trials. Those reams of data will enable researchers to draw much more rigorous conclusions — for instance, they could realize that a treatment works better in certain demographic groups.
Are drug companies rolling out these new applications concerned about the personal touch? Well, yes… as with anything that impacts the bottom line. I read how Merck and Amazon’s first joint initiative, the Alexa Diabetes Challenge, is a call for researchers to create personalized, voice-enabled reminders and recommendations for patients with Type 2 diabetes. For example, Alexa, Amazon’s personal artificial intelligence home assistant, could remind patients to take their insulin or to exercise each day.
So, like the voice on your car’s GPS gently saying “Recalculating, recalculating…” with your every errant turn, there’s going to be a voice of consciousness should you errantly skip taking a pill. And yet, personal irritation aside, the potential impact is no small thing.
Medical non-adherence — skipping or forgetting doses, or taking the wrong dose — costs Americans up to $300 billion each year due to increased sickness. Ten percent of all hospitalizations and nursing home admittances are prompted by non-adherence. The problem claims 125,000 American lives each year.
Ironic, isn’t it, that we consider medical advancements by removing people out of the health care equation? Worried about whether your elderly dad or mom is taking their meds on schedule? Don’t use your phone to actually talk to them; save time and just check the app or assume all is well if you don’t receive an alert …and then spend time saved on something else, like yourself.
Ugh.
I don’t know where technology is taking us. I’m not sure I like putting the highest priorities on efficiency alone. Technology preaches how healthcare (really all tasks) can always be a little more effective if you remove people (in this case, both doctor and patient) from the equation.
Maybe there is good to the new world now unfolding. Fine. But entering a world where some pocket device replaces the personal care and touch from our own Dr. Dickinson and others like him isn’t exactly what I’d call unqualified progress. Quite the contrary.
It’s enough to turn a happy face sad.