Wellapps

From today on, I plan to update my blog as often as possible to keep patients up to speed on what I learn about the future of “Participatory Health”, and more specifically, how it can improve quality of life for those with chronic illnesses.

So now is probably a good time to take a step back and let you know why I am interested in all of this and what I think “Participatory Health” is.

I have had Ulcerative Colitis since the age of 16. Like all chronic illnesses, the condition requires constant monitoring of symptoms to maintain a good quality of life. I have never really been great at keeping tabs of my own symptoms, but I have always had an affinity for new technologies….hence my desire to leverage emerging technologies to enable efficient symptom monitoring for patients.

“Participatory Health”…what is it? And why do I care? As physicians and researchers aim to understand more about chronic illnesses, it will become increasingly important to manage the communication chain of symptom data. Physicians seem to agree that nobody understands symptoms better than the patient him/herself. A physician can guess all day long, but will never know as well as the patient what is symptomatically normal and abnormal for them (aside from clinical test results). So if we can leverage existing technologies that patients use daily anyway (PDAs, cell phones, internet, IVR, SMS, etc.) to collect symptom data, we can improve patient care and hopefully learn a lot more about these illnesses.

Again, I will try to keep everyone up to date about my project and what I learn…and I hope you will contribute as well. Comments are encouraged…so let me know what’s on your mind.