Software Tools for Patient-Centred Care and Personalized Therapy

Table of Contents

Personalization platforms and tools

• SmallData.io, Cornell Tech - research into personalized recommendations, privacy controls, and learning behaviour patterns from historical personal data.
• Microsoft Health Bot - an AI-based chat bot using global knowledge to provide triage, symptom checking, provide generation information, and connecting to healthcare providers.
• Doctor on Demand - Access to different healthcare professionals connected through a single patient account. Personalizations may come from continuity of care between patient and various connected professionals.
• Talkspace - A bot / assessment based therapy-matching service. Customers complete a "brief assessment", and the platform determines options for you to choose from.
• Maple - an online platform connecting patients to practitioners. Patients begin by describing symptoms or their need, and get matched with an available doctor. Patients can also choose to see a specialist for specific topics such as sleep, diet, and breastfeeding. Interactions can be in-app texts, video call, or voice call.
• HealthKit - An Apple framework for building apps. Provides a means for making apps/devices into data sources for the Apple Health app.
• CareKit - An Apple framework for building apps. "Apps built with CareKit are improving care for some of the most challenging medical conditions today. Continue patient care at home with apps that can deliver personalized treatment, track daily progress, and generate trends over time."
• Google Fit - A Google framework for building apps. "Google Fit APIs can help you discover new insights users want to share with you. Use these insights to build valuable new features to help people train harder, eat healthier, stay calmer, and sleep better."
• The Diary - Provides end-to-end features for both the care practitioner and patient. Allows for the practitioner to manage, track and view patient care/health and deliver virtual care. The patient can track their health journey, connect with care teams, and even share with other supports such as family and friends.
• Symple - An app for tracking how you feel; including diet, activity, and medication. Can use it build questions for your health care practitioner.
• Capzule - A personal health record. Track and visualize health information. Can share information with family and health care professionals.
• Kaiser Permanente
• Amwell
• VSee

Articles about personalization in healthcare

• "Healthcare in the Age of Personalization" by Glenn Llopis, Forbes.
  • Push to personalization - Personalized care possible through advances in digital tools and medical advances (like genomics)
  • Push to value-based care through standardization - reduce the cost of delivery of healthcare through standardized delivery.
  • Push to change traditional healthcare driven by younger population - less primary physicians, more self-care and monitoring.
• "Healthcare in the Age of Personalization, Part 2" by Glenn Llopis, Forbes.
  • Cultural shift to patient-consumers - more choice, more individual expectations to satisfy.
  • Two components of personalized healthcare: a way of gathering input and feedback from patient (and family), and be able to share that information with parties in the continuum of care.
• Patient- vs People-Centred Care: What’s the difference?
  • "As patients and families, there is another reason to prefer using people-centred care rather than patient-centred care: Patients should not be reduced to, or defined by, their disease, illness or condition. They are persons with individual preferences, needs and abilities, who are full partners in their care. They are people, not cases."
  • "People-centred care is about everyone in the continuum of care having an equal voice."
  • "There is no hierarchy; everyone involved, from patients to doctors to families, social workers or spiritual advisors, contributes to a coordinated effort in the delivery of care and services."
• "Best Practice Guideline for Patient-Centred Care in South African Public Hospitals"
  • A guideline that documents recommendations and rationale for different patient centred best practices.
  • Guideline is published for South Africa, but many of the recommendations are applicable to other regions.

Use cases and contexts

Existing use cases:

• personal health and well-being tracking
  • Large-Scale Assessment of a Smartwatch to Identify Atrial Fibrillation
  • Digital Alzheimer's study
  • Oura Ring used in NBA Bubble
  • WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute announces capability to predict COVID-19 related symptoms up to three days in advance
• Virtual care for Indigenous communities
  • Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN)
• Remote communities
  • Enhancing access to care in northern rural communities via telehealth
• Japan
  • 20% of population over 65,
  • Use of robots/robotics for companions, aides, assistive technology
  • VR for virtual trips, and to help practitioners understand patients experiences (e.g. with dementia)
  • IoT for data collection
  • Data aggregation, including in hospitals, to streamline medical care and provide (in an anonymized form) to public and private sector for future developments/innovations.
  • Resources
    • https://www.euronews.com/2019/10/29/japan-leads-the-way-with-elderly-care
    • https://www.statnews.com/2018/02/05/aging-japan-robots-virtual-reality/
    • https://tokyoesque.com/japan-agetech-healthcare/
    • https://blog.insta360.com/elderly-virtual-reality-travel-is-the-newest-craze-in-japan/

Appendix: Personalization in Virtual Visit Tools

This section outlines the personalization capabilities of various virtual healthcare tools based on the guideline research (see Review of Existing Relevant Virtual Health Guidelines and Practices), and other virtual healthcare platforms from other regions.

What are "personalizations" for software tools? Personalizations are settings activated by the user to change the way the system performs or behaves to better suit their needs and preferences in a particular context.

1. under pilot
2. Alternative option

Personalization Options

Doxy.me

• Web-based video conferencing
• Patient does not need to register for an account - they connect to their healthcare provider using the provided link.
  • Provided links can also pre-populate patient details such as their name to simplify the check-in process

Zoom

• Light and Dark theme
• Screen reader alerts for different events (host joining, chat messages, role changes etc).
• Transcript / Closed Caption service
• Support for some system preferences like contrast mode
• Lacks support for some system preferences like text size