Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will launch an app this winter to help cancer patients manage and track chemotherapy drugs more easily.
During pilot testing of the MediConnect app, Anne Nilon, a 60-year-old breast cancer patient, noted in the Oct. 25 news release that navigating the mountain of medication that often come with a cancer diagnosis can sometimes feel like "finishing a jigsaw puzzle" but that the tools in the app "make it easier, with a lower likelihood of missed or incorrect doses of my cancer chemo medications."
The app also features a way for Sutter physicians to monitor patients adherence to chemo medication schedules and make sure they stay on track.
"It's like a savvy Siri, custom-made for cancer patients to help them simplify complex chemo regimens in ways that increase the likelihood of medication effectiveness and decrease the chance of side effects from improper chemo use," said Rajesh Behl, MD, the lead physician involved in the app's development, hematology malignancy specialist and medical director of Sutter’s Alta Bates Summit Comprehensive Cancer Center.