Personalized Cancer Screening: Cancer Health Monitor App (Part 5)

Let me walk you through our platform's concept before unveiling our prototype. Our workflow is structured as follows:

• Gathering Your Story: Initially, we'll ask for very personal information such as your health conditions, family history of cancer, and various risk factors including lifestyle, body, and diet.  

• Calculating Your Risk: Next, we'll assess your individual risk for several types of cancer.

• Risk Classification: Finally, we'll categorize the risk for each cancer type into one of three groups: standard, elevated, or high risk.

As we've highlighted in our previous articles, our approach remains deeply personalized. In cases where personal health conditions or a family history of cancer are present, a Medical Doctor will review and verify the calculated cancer risk. This individual review is crucial because we're dealing with a sensitive and vital matter: your health. Our goal is to guarantee the utmost accuracy in our evaluations and the subsequent screening recommendations.

Moving forward, the app selects recommended screenings for each type of cancer, compiling them into a personalized Screening Plan for each user. These selections are grounded in established medical guidelines, drawing from sources like the European Society for Medical Oncology and Germany's S3-Leitlinien.

But let's move to the most exciting part: what does our prototype look like?

In addition to a fully functional Electronic Health Record system, our prototype is designed to store and analyze data critical for evaluating cancer risk. This includes:

• Personal health conditions: We at your specific health background to understand your unique profile.

• Family history of cancer: Your family's medical history can provide vital clues in assessing your risk.

• Risk Factors: We consider a range of factors that could influence your risk, such as lifestyle choices, body metrics, environmental exposures, and dietary habits.

We have a dedicated view in our system specifically for storing all the Risk Factors.

Utilizing these inputs, our app calculates the cancer risk for various types based on the Harvard Cancer Risk Score. This calculation then categorizes each cancer type into a specific risk class. [1]

Following this, the app will not only select appropriate screenings based on your risk profile but also assist in scheduling them, as it can be seen below:

As you can see, the screening plan requires review and approval, especially for patients with specific personal conditions and a family history of cancer.

You might wonder, 'Does this really look like an app I can use?'

You're right to ask. In the coming months, we're dedicating all our efforts to launch a prototype that offers a seamless User Experience. Our goal is to smoothly guide you from Gathering Your Story to Calculating Your Risk, through to Risk Classification, and finally, to the creation of your personalized Screening Plan. Your feedback and support are crucial for us. They enable us to continually refine the Cancer Health Monitor, ensuring we deliver the best possible product for you.

Why does launching our app take some time?

The answer lies in our commitment to compliance and quality. As our app falls under the Medical Device Regulation, we are working towards meeting all the necessary regulatory requirements. This includes:

• Implementing a Quality Management System: Establishing a robust framework to ensure consistent quality and safety.

• Developing Safe and Secure Software Processes: Setting up the required processes to ensure our software is both secure and reliable.

• Conducting a Risk Assessment for the Software: Rigorously evaluating potential risks associated with our software to enhance user safety.

• Ensuring GDPR Compliance: Adhering to the General Data Protection Regulation to protect our users' privacy and data.

• Performing a Full Clinical Evaluation: Demonstrating the benefits and effectiveness of our Cancer Health Monitor.

All these steps are crucial and time-consuming, but our motivation and commitment to delivering a high-quality, reliable product are unwavering!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has participated in our market evaluation! Your insights have been invaluable. And to everyone else, your feedback is always welcome and greatly appreciated.

Info: For those who participated in our market evaluation, you might have noticed a different design prototype from what's presented here. This alternate design may be incorporated in future versions, but for now, we're focusing on the design below. Our reason? We aim for a quicker market launch.

[1] Harvard Report on Cancer Prevention Volume 4: Harvard Cancer Risk Index; Colditz G.A. et al. (2000)