The App To Revolutionise Healthcare
By Alex Moss
You see them everywhere, on people’s wrists and in annoyingly contagious adverts but could wearable fitness devices be put to even better use? Yes, they monitor your day to day ‘fitness’, such things as how many steps you’re taking and how much sleep you’re getting but if they are able to gather this sort of information could they not also gather data that tells you there is something seriously wrong?
That is certainly the hope and idea behind aparito, an app and wearable device that aims to help children suffering from a variety of diseases. Founder and director of aparito, Dr. Elin Haf Davies, who has worked as a children’s nurse for many years, explains how aparito was born out of a ‘frustration that we were relying on very sterile snapshots of data that tell you how the patient is doing on a hospital visit but which doesn’t actually tell you anything about how they’re coping in day to day life at home.’
I hope our approach will contribute quite significantly to changing the way patients are in control of their own data.
The idea behind aparito is simple: to take information gathered by the wearable device, combine it with the patient’s perspective on how they are handling their illness. The data can be accessed by the patient’s doctor in real-time at all times, cutting out the need for all manner of long and arduous tests to get the same results.
The key to this is that the app and wearable device are designed to benefit both the patient and the doctor. The patient is able to keep track of their symptoms and therefore better manage their illness as well as knowing when to take medication. Meanwhile, the doctor is able to monitor the everyday activity of the patient.
At the moment aparito is firmly focused on helping children overcome diseases they are born with, or at least learning how to manage them. But in an age where healthcare is coming under increasing pressure could something like aparito potentially revolutionise the way we receive care?
Elin says, “I certainly hope our approach will contribute quite significantly to changing the way patients are in control of their own data. And how that data can provide a more meaningful contribution to healthcare solutions.”
At the moment these fitness wearables are marketed as a commodity for well being but, as Elin highlights, “by modifying them slightly they could become a far more powerful tool in the health management setting.”
Put it another way, the last time you went to the doctor with an ailment they couldn’t immediately diagnose what happened? Chances are you had a series of blood tests, not to mention other bodily fluid tests, in the hope of getting to the bottom of what was causing the issue. All those tests, the nurses who administered them, the lab technicians who analyzed them and finally the doctor who assessed them, took time, money and resources to administer. And they were nothing but a snapshot of the specific time when the test was taken.
I always keep it all in context of how would the kids I looked after react to that? It’s always been my inspiration.
As Elin points out, if aparito evolves the way Elin hopes it will, “It’s about changing hospital tests and appointments into the patient’s own home but still providing the data to the doctors when they need it.”
Such a concept could revolutionise the way healthcare is administered and alleviate a burden that is already threatening to harm healthcare in the long run.
Doubt Elin and her team’s ambition at your peril. After all, when she’s not trying to help children cope with their illnesses she’s something of an adventurer. She has rowed across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well as sailing across the Pacific. Having raised nearly £300,000 for charities Elin is a woman on a mission and she never struggles to find inspiration to drive her, “I always keep it all in context of how would the kids I looked after react to that? It’s always been my inspiration.”
Elin and aparito could be on the verge of inspiring the world to better health.
Follow aparito on Twitter and LinkedIn
Follow Dr. Elin Haf Davies on Twitter
