We live in a digital age and more and more of us are downloading health apps in order to boost and improve our health and wellbeing. But, how can digital health apps help us in our health journeys? Specifically, can an app be useful if you have been diagnosed and undergone treatment for breast cancer?
Dr Anne Bruinvels is the founder of the app OWise, a digital platform created to help patients with breast cancer. Together with her brother who works in the oncology and breast cancer rehabilitation space, they realised that patients were looking for resources to help them through their cancer diagnoses, on the mobile phones. Based on this demand, they realised that a digital platform would be extremely helpful.
The OWise app is a one-stop shop that can store information surrounding the cancer treatment, record and monitor side effects and allows sharing of information with doctors or family members. It even has a recording facility within the app allowing recording of clinic consultations to be listened to later. And all this is within an app where the data is encrypted and is GDPR compliant and secure. OWise has been successfully integrated into the electronic health records of NHS Lothian (Scotland) and is currently undergoing a randomised clinical trial at the Royal Marsden NHS Trust.
It was a great conversation and Anne shares so many important tips surrounding health tech in general. Do listen to the end as she describes the things to look out for before downloading a health app, to make sure it is safe, robust and secure.
You can check out the OWise website here. You can also connect with Anne and the team on Facebook and Instagram. You can also follow them on Twitter.
You can also email them at: info@owise.uk
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If you would like to learn more about clinical trials and digital apps that can help you find the most suitable one, listen to my conversation with Danielle Ralic from Ancora.AI here.