Anne joined the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) from the Netherlands to develop OWise in 2015. The NIA is facilitating Anne’s efforts to improve patient experience and patient-doctor dialogue by making OWise available to breast cancer patients and clinicians across the UK.
OWise was selected by NIA to be an effective tool in the cancer treatment process:
OWise is an innovative patient support app shown in peer-reviewed medical journal to improve patient-doctor interactions and is recommended by 90% of patients and clinicians.
OWise breast cancer, the first mobile app to offer patients personalised medical support throughout their treatment, was the subject of a validation study now published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research – Cancer. The investigation by the University Medical Centre Utrecht, which is the first validation study of a mobile breast cancer app to be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, strongly supports the use of OWise breast cancer as a shared-decision making tool that is highly valued by both clinicians and patients.
In addition to offering breast cancer patients personalised medical information, OWise also offers tracking tools that enable patients to record their treatment experiences, side effects and overall quality of life, alongside a range of other helpful features. OWise makes personalised treatment easier and more effective, allowing changes in levels of pain, sickness and fatigue to be easily captured and shared with healthcare professionals, who can then use the data that patients record in the app to inform decisions on treatment options.
The scientific article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Cancer [JMIR Cancer 2016, Jun 07, 2(1): e8] describes that users of OWise report an increased feeling of control over their lives whilst undergoing treatment and that healthcare professionals note that the patient-doctor dialogue has improved.
“We’re thrilled that the results in the Journal of Medical Internet Research – Cancer validate what we’ve been hearing from patients and clinicians since we launched in 2013, and we hope to be able to provide this free tool to as many breast cancer patients as possible,” said Dr Anne Bruinvels, the app’s inventor and CEO.
The original app was developed in the Netherlands in collaboration with patients to provide the most valuable support possible from the diagnosis. Based on its success, Dr. Bruinvels was awarded a Fellowship by the NHS Innovation Accelerator, a programme geared toward making new ideas and technologies more readily available to patients, to support the roll-out of OWise breast cancer across the NHS.
The OWise breast cancer app can be downloaded from www.owise.net/us and from the iTunes and Play app stores.