Problem Statement

The diagnosis and treatment presents a variety of challenges to patients as well as their surroundings. Different types of breast cancer bring different challenges with them. In hormone receptor positive breast cancer, patients have to take medication for 5-10 years after the acute treatment period. The medication confronts the patient with a variety of side effects and often seemingly no direct use, leading patients to stop taking the medication. But the adherence to medication is crucial to decrease chances of a relapse.

Background

• Context: Patients often feel discouraged and alone. Even though the disease is overcome, things are not as before. They don't receive close medical support and up to 70% of patients stop taking their medication.
• Problems: While patients are closely monitored by their doctors throughout the treatment, they often fall into a gap during aftercare. Therefore, discontinuation of medication often goes unnoticed.
• Barriers: Costs and reimbursement, access for patients and to doctors.
• Critical success factors: With 5-10 years in medication, it's important to design a solution that encourages long-term engagement and provides immediate value.
• Goals: Develop a solution that helps patients navigate aftercare and fosters long-term engagement and enablement.

Problem Statement

A lot of digital tools already provide valuable support to patients, independent of location, access to doctors or time. But they often still lack precise assessment of the patient's medical condition. This assessment step is important to provide a clearer picture of side effects patients are confronted with during treatment and provide a more individualised and precise intervention, also in oncology.

Background

• Context: In recent years, digital tools have been able to support patients in new ways, including digital biomarkers and algorithms that provide new opportunities in patient care, e.g. with side effect or stress management.
• Problems: The adherence to digital tools and creation of a measurable impact for patients is a challenge. Side effects are often multi-faceted and causes are interdependent.
• Barriers: Only a few possibilities to medically reliably assess vital parameters via mobile phone exist, ensuring precise data analysis and impactful conclusions.
• Critical success factors: Being able to match existing or new (digital) biomarkers with medical needs, reliable data analysis and a perceived benefit for patients.
• Goals: Develop a solution that combines biomarkers, medical need and immediate value for patients

Problem Statement

After patients have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), they will enter a long medication/non-medication based therapeutic pathway on which they can be supported. However, this support needs to be tuned to the (slowly) changing requirements and needs that the patients as well as his informal and formal caregivers will have over time.

Background

• Context: AD progression varies between patients, as do needs over time. Monitoring solutions would enhance therapy and allow to support patients and caregivers in a step-wise approach, thereby creating real patient-centric value.
• Problems: Monitoring a patient with current options entails tools and frameworks that are not designed for this purpose, i.e. high frequency or continuous deployment of neuropsychological assessments etc. Moreover, it is unclear how a finer grained disease progression insight will fit to physician workflows and decision making.
• Barriers: Lacking tools, validated methods, structural challenges
• Critical success factors: Keep it simple, most patients who we are talking about are not digitally literate. Physicians, esp. GPs, are not too familiar with actionable monitoring settings in AD.
• Goals: Sketching a solution that will fit both patients and physicians and create value for both

Problem Statement

Findings from long-term studies show that modifiable lifestyle factors can have significant impact on your brain health. Some quite good assessment tools have been developed to identify these risks on an individual level. However, it is still unclear how we make these insights successfully actionable over a long time.

Background

• Context: Recent publications (cf. Livingston et. al., 2020) show that brain health deterioration can be prevented by altering lifestyle factors such as exercise, nutrition, social engagement etc. In order to achieve this, some topics need to be addressed: Behavioural change and temporal discounting as well as structural determinants of health and matching personalized assessments with offerings.
• Problems: Brain health -when healthy- is not a primary concern of most people but rather an indirect need (i.e. I want to be socially active (primary need) and therefore I need a healthy brain (secondary need)). How can we best address these indirect needs? How can we find personalized solutions?
• Barriers: Lacking awareness, Indirect needs, matching while maintaining data minimization
• Critical success factors: Establish a concept that entails the community around users. Sketching out a good matching mechanism (assessment <> solution)
• Goals: Linking personalized brain health assessment to personalized solutions and creating a long-term feedback loop

Problem Statement

The COVID-19 pandemic shows us once again the enormous need for the development of innovative solutions and new forms of treatment. Digitalization plays a central role in this and takes hold of all relevant areas of healthcare and prevention. This results in a conceivably wide spectrum of possible applications for the use of digital solutions and innovative approaches.

In order to guarantee long-term successful use and well-being, it is necessary to develop patient-centered solutions that are specifically tailored to the needs of the patient. How can we improve and maintain the well-being of people? Oncology, neurology or any other field! Which challenges do you want to tackle?