Technology supporting patients and clinicians

SPONSORED BY Care­ol­o­gy

Nav­i­gat­ing can­cer through the fog of treat­ment, side-effects, com­plex med­ica­tion regimes and per­son­al upheaval can be as chal­leng­ing as the phys­i­cal storm cre­at­ed by the con­di­tion itself.

Patients strug­gle with adher­ing to dai­ly drugs, man­ag­ing side-effects and stay­ing in touch with med­ical appoint­ments, often plung­ing their health into fur­ther dan­ger.

But a new brand of “thought­ful tech­nol­o­gy” is sup­port­ing patients and their fam­i­lies through the com­plex­i­ties of diag­no­sis, treat­ment and recov­ery.

Care­ol­o­gy, an app that can work with NHS and pri­vate health­care ser­vices, is pio­neer­ing dig­i­tal can­cer care that puts users in con­trol and gives them con­fi­dence at one of the most vul­ner­a­ble peri­ods of their lives.

It is designed to improve health out­comes for patients by help­ing keep on top of the com­plex­i­ty of life with can­cer. For med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, Care­ol­o­gy enables scal­able, vir­tu­al out­pa­tient care and cre­ates bet­ter-informed con­sul­ta­tions. The com­bi­na­tion of patient self-man­age­ment and proac­tive inter­ven­tion could improve safe­ty, reduce costs and free up clin­i­cal capac­i­ty.

The plat­form, which inte­grates with pop­u­lar health-track­ing devices, was devised by Paul Lan­dau, an expe­ri­enced tech­nol­o­gy entre­pre­neur when his wife Lucy, was diag­nosed with Hodgkin lym­phoma.

“I watched Lucy go through gru­elling treat­ment and was shocked by how lit­tle tech­nol­o­gy was avail­able to sup­port peo­ple going through such a com­plex diag­no­sis,” says Lan­dau, the founder of wear­able tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness Fit­bug.

“Can­cer is daunt­ing both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, from the trau­ma of diag­no­sis to all the things that need man­ag­ing effec­tive­ly. I saw the oppor­tu­ni­ty for con­sumerised tech­nol­o­gy to make liv­ing with can­cer less com­pli­cat­ed.”

Life becomes dom­i­nat­ed by remem­ber­ing med­ica­tions, man­ag­ing side-effects and keep­ing on top of con­sul­ta­tions. Often with­out want­i­ng to be, or to feel like, a nui­sance, it can be hard for peo­ple to gauge when to con­tact the hos­pi­tal for help.

Careology’s intu­itive design enables peo­ple to improve self-man­age­ment and log the cumu­la­tive effects of treat­ment. From mon­i­tor­ing vital signs, to mood, symp­toms and side-effects, Care­ol­o­gy ensures these key pieces of infor­ma­tion, often for­got­ten between con­sul­ta­tions, are now avail­able to clin­i­cians.

Care­ol­o­gy can high­light poten­tial prob­lems, such as a tem­per­a­ture spike that could indi­cate an infec­tion, before they become crit­i­cal, ulti­mate­ly reduc­ing clin­i­cal risk and lead­ing to bet­ter out­comes for patients.

The app pro­vides reminders to help min­imise the risk of miss­ing med­ica­tion, improv­ing adher­ence rates.

“This is incred­i­bly impor­tant, as many patients expe­ri­ence ‘chemo brain’ where it is dif­fi­cult to remem­ber things, so any­thing that helps effec­tive­ly stay on top of med­ica­tion is vital to their health,” says Lan­dau.

The need for this tech­nol­o­gy has been empha­sised by coro­n­avirus, which has restrict­ed con­tact with indi­vid­u­als’ usu­al sup­port net­works and reduced face-to-face hos­pi­tal appoint­ments.

The NHS is invest­ing in tech to improve can­cer treat­ments and out­comes, to meet an ambi­tion that by 2028 an extra 55,000 peo­ple each year will sur­vive for five years or more fol­low­ing diag­no­sis. The dig­i­tal approach will be vital as the num­bers of peo­ple in the UK liv­ing with can­cer is fore­cast to rise from 2.5 mil­lion to four mil­lion by 2030, accord­ing to Macmil­lan Can­cer Sup­port.

The app, which can be down­loaded via iOS or Android, has been devel­oped to inte­grate with health­care providers to enable med­ical teams to mon­i­tor pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able patient data and devise effec­tive, effi­cient and per­son­alised care plans for patients. It has been rec­om­mend­ed by Macmil­lan as a use­ful tool for peo­ple liv­ing with can­cer.

“We have received very pos­i­tive feed­back from the patients and care­givers who are using Care­ol­o­gy. It’s help­ing them feel far more secure, organ­ised and con­nect­ed dur­ing treat­ment. For clin­i­cians and health­care providers, it rep­re­sents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve effi­cient and cost-effec­tive can­cer ser­vices,” says Lan­dau.

Careology is helping patients feel far more secure, organised and connected during treatment

“Liv­ing with can­cer can feel very lone­ly and places a huge bur­den on your shoul­ders, but Care­ol­o­gy can give you the con­fi­dence that you are not alone. We will lift that weight and help you feel con­nect­ed to your med­ical teams and sup­port­ed by those around you.”

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it www.careology.health/care