TPP

Contact: Sara Dowrick (sara.dowrick@tpp-uk.com).

Suggestion:

As healthcare resources become increasingly stretched, there is an ongoing push to enable patients to monitor their own health and wellbeing. The widespread use of smartphones has seen a large rise in the number of patient-facing medical apps available to users but encouraging uptake and use of these apps is a key challenge.

The aim of this project is to create a patient-facing, medical Android app that will improve, or aid in monitoring, the health of the user. In order to make the app more appealing and promote uptake, the app should be presented in a visually appealing 'gaming' format - e.g. a user is awarded points based on how well they adhere to their recommended salt intake etc.

In order to provide most benefit, special attention should also be given to the particular problem, disease or illness that the app has been developed to help with. A list of suitable causes will be provided to the project participants before commencing and will ensure there is plenty of scope for creative thinking and novel implementations...

Response:

It would be nice to do something in the healthcare area. I think it would be necessary to refine this a bit before advertising, as there are already a lot of apps in this general area. As an example of a more specific application, several years ago we had a team do a very successful project aimed at field support for patient records and monitoring during Ebola outbreaks.