One of the most exciting aspects of personalised healthcare is the prospect of giving doctors and patients more information to make better decisions about their health. Digital health tools can give patients access to information about their health with the tap of a screen, offering them the opportunity to care for themselves as they never have before. These technologies can transform disease monitoring from a weekly or monthly test performed at a doctor’s office to a 24-7 readout that can be accessed by a patient and doctor at any time.
Digital Health: Digital tools that bring disease diagnosis and monitoring closer to patients, including wearable gadgets, ingestible sensors, robotics, and health apps.
In one example, Roche is using Floodlight, a smartphone-based app that can detect changes in cognition and motor function in multiple sclerosis patients who are participating in clinical trials. Today the data is used by researchers, but in the future platforms such as this could help patients and their doctors gain a deeper understanding of how their disease is changing. This is but one demonstration of the value of mobile apps in the real-time monitoring of symptoms and potentially the optimisation of care.