Salt Lake City-based University of Utah's nursing college, therapeutic games division and apps lab are collaborating on a new mobile app that helps pediatric cancer patients log their symptoms and share their health data with their care teams, according to Fox 13.
The app, dubbed Color Me Health, allows children to record their symptoms in a diary and create an avatar to use to describe where they may be experiencing pain. All information recorded in the app is then translated into a report for the patient's clinicians to review.
The National Institutes of Health and the St. Baldrick's Foundation funded the development of the app, which is not yet publicly available. The project's leaders aim to release it soon so physicians can begin using it on their younger patients, according to the report.
Roger Altizer, PhD, digital medicine director of University of Utah's medical innovation center, explained to the network why the Color Me Healthy app will work well among pediatric patients: "Kids understand games and apps really well. I think COVID-19 has shown that lots of people are using more apps and more games in their lives, so it's a natural thing to expect kids to be able to use an app to describe their symptoms."
Dr. Altizer and the other project leaders hope to further develop the app so that it will be able to transition data collected directly to the patient's EHR.