Wellapps

There are many reasons for communication breakdowns between patients and physicians, ranging from intimidating doctors to limited physician time to forgetful patients. I was recently at a CCFA Patient Symposium at which Dr. Peter Rubin (a leading NY Gastroenterologist) gave an interesting presentation on the many factors that contribute to this poor communication and what physicians and patients can do to improve their relationship. I maintain that existing and emerging technology can be leveraged to improve this communication chain.

Patients with chronic conditions experience a wide range of symptoms on a daily basis. Some are related to their condition and some are not. In my opinion, one big research/managed patient care barrier is that patients sometime make assumptions about their symptoms and under-report to physicians.

Using online and mobile applications to record symptom data (with services like GI Monitor) can enhance medical research and patient care by uncovering symptom correlations that might otherwise have gone unrecognized. It is extremely important to note that patients aren’t making (and they shouldn’t) the correlations between symptoms and their conditions. This should be left to the medical pros.

The important factor is the timing of the recorded symptom data. It is a fairly simple data-entry principal. The proximity of the event to the to the time it gets recorded dictates the accuracy of the data. In the case of a patient symptom, if the symptom gets recorded a minute after it is experienced, the data will be much more accurate than if it gets communicated 2 weeks later at a doctor’s visit (IF it gets communicated at all those 2 weeks later). It’s like calling your friend on the drive home from a great movie. Your review will be much different than if you talk to that friend 3 weeks later…after having seen 3 more movies. You might even choose not to tell your friend about the first movie at all.

Technology has evolved to the point where the average person can use existing devices to enter data virtually anyplace and at anytime. Cell phones, PDAs, computers, etc. offer entry points to a central database of endless medical possibilities. The hope here is that accurately recorded symptom data can lead to new areas of research. I am not suggesting that direct-patient entered data via the web/mobile should be used for clinical trials to prove existing hypotheses (maybe someday soon when data qualification evolves and controlled environments are perfected – which WellApps is working on). I am, however, suggesting that there is tremendous potential for this data to lead researchers to theories they might not have otherwise pursued.

I will leave you with a fairly insignificant, yet illustrative, personal example. I had been on a certain medication for my UC for about 18 years. Four months ago, my doc switched me to a new medication. About 10 weeks after the switch, my hair started thickening significantly in a bald spot that was previously pretty thin. Was it because of the medication switch? I have no idea…and I shouldn’t be the one who tries to figure that out (again – should be the medical pros). The point is, since I recorded this data at the time it occurred, there is now a record that illustrates the timing of the events and a possible correlation to the medication switch. If other patients recorded this same phenomenon, physicians and researchers might choose to conduct a clinical trial that they otherwise might not have considered at all. Again – just an illustrative example of the concept.

We all hope that research grant money will be used for more important discoveries than possible hair loss from a certain drug…but you get my point. We (the patient community) can do our part for medical research. Accurately recording our symptom data will certainly allow physicians to make better treatment recommendations, but it will also open doors to new areas of research that might have otherwise gone unexplored.

By the way…stay tuned for the next release of GI Monitor…which includes a “custom symptom” logging tool for this very reason. More details to come... Also see The Future of Participatory Health