mHealth Comes to Patient Support Groups

If you are a patient and haven’t yet researched or joined a patient support community, you should.

Communities exist for chronic cancer patients, chronic disease patients, rare disease patients and patients with almost any disease you can think of. Founders of these communities are often patients themselves and started the community with the thought of helping other patients through the medical and emotional maze that comes with the territory of living with a serious illness.

If you are a patient and haven’t yet researched or joined a patient support community, you should.

Communities exist for chronic cancer patients, chronic disease patients, rare disease patients and patients with almost any disease you can think of. Founders of these communities are often patients themselves and started the community with the thought of helping other patients through the medical and emotional maze that comes with the territory of living with a serious illness.

Websites such as Ben’s Friends or HealthUnlocked are networks of different patient communities relating to different diseases. PatientsLikeMe works more like a database with a member login and the ability to search for others with the same disease. It touts more that 250,000 members, and over 2,000 conditions represented.

Imerman Angels offers one-on-one cancer support. Patients are matched one to one with another patient, hopefully who lives nearby, is about the same age, with the same diagnosis and some of the same problems and issues.

And now, there is something more: StupidCancer, an organization specializing in young adult cancer is developing a mobile app that will match cancer patients globaly, digitally and anonymously, via SMS, one to one, with another cancer patient.

StupidCancer states on its website,

“Stupid Cancer ….empowers those affected by young adult cancer through innovative and award-winning programs and services. We are the nation’s largest support community for this underserved population and serve as a bullhorn for the young adult cancer movement.” 

Adolescents and young adults account for 72,000 new cancer diagnoses each year. What better than a cool mobile app to appeal to the younger generations? StupidCancer’s Instapeer is an app that works much like an online dating service. You can screen and filter and choose, all anonymously, to be matched to another cancer patient in order to converse, support and help one another through living with cancer. See the Instapeer images below to get a feel for how the app works:

StupidCancer feels that current cancer peer matching services need a 21^st century makeover – a more relevant process that is in sync with today’s empowered healthcare consumer.

The Instapeer campaign on Indiegogo claims that Instapeer is for any cancer patient, but it will most likely appeal to the younger and more tech-savvy candidates.

The Indiegogo page lists the medical advisors involved in the development process and also offers numerous “perks” for contributions of increasing amounts.

I spoke with Matthew Zachary at Stupid Cancer and asked him how he came up with the idea.

“No one else was doing it. It’s a revolutionary idea that young cancer patients are really excited about. At the recent OMG Cancer Summit for young adults this year, when I assured the audience that we would have an app by Labor Day, Instapeer got a standing ovation.”

StupidCancer anticipates 500,000 users adopting Instapeer by 2016.

Resources:

http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36244-Stupid-Cancer-s-Instapeer-Mobile-Health-App-Set-to-Revolutionize-Cancer-Support