Getting Started with the Heritage Open mHealth Challenge and Office Hours

Have you heard about our Heritage Challenge? Interested in improving the lives of patients through the Open mHealth technical approach? Interested in winning $100,000? Searching for a good idea?

Well, here are a couple of starter projects to get the creative juices flowing

Starter Project 1

• Clinical domain: Diabetes management.
• Idea: Improve medication, diet adherence and overall well-being.
• How: A web-based dashboard that tracks blood glucose, medications taken, activity, diet, mood.
• Applications and Devices used: Wireless glucose meter, FitBit, carb counter, The Eatery, Ginger.io, Mood Map

Example Vignette

• Health Care Professional: Joe, an RN/CHW who works with diabetics on disease management.
• Patient: Irina, a 65 yo insulin-dependent diabetic with worsening A1C, increasing BMI.
• Story: Joe talking with Irina reviews dashboard and sees consistent correlation of evening snacking, missing night-time insulin, and early morning hyperglycemia. He sees that Irina becomes lonely in the evening based on her mood tracker reports, and works with her to get involved in evening social activities. Joe makes note to text Irina in the evening about mood/diet, and to let her clinician know to address possible depression.

Starter Project 2

• Clinical domain: Crohn’s disease.
• Idea: Improve medication/diet adherence and look closely at symptom triggers – Food? Treatments? Mood?
• How: Dashboard tracking abdominal pain, fatigue, hours slept, number of bowel movements, weight, mood, activity, med adherence, new treatments, diet.
• Apps/Devices Used: Ginger.IO, Fitbit, My IBD, GI Monitor, Eatery.

Example Vignette

• Health Care Professional: Eva, GI doc who wants to be more systematic about tracking her patients’ wellbeing and response to diet changes and experimental treatments.
• Patient: Gregory, 26yo man with Crohn’s, Major Depressive Disorder, frequent complaints of abdominal pain.
• Story: At regular checkup, Gregory opens up Crohnology.MD, which pulls information from Ginger.IO and Fitbit, and reviews information with Eva. Eva, who sees that there has been significantly more abdominal pain (but no changes in mood, stress, or activity) since starting a new probiotic regimen, decides to discontinue the new treatment.