As part of a syndicated project with patient support charity Melanoma UK, digital health company Vitaccess is donating £10,000 towards an Adamo Horus HS800 mole mapper for the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.
In October 2017, Vitaccess, Melanoma UK and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust joined forces to create the innovative patient-centric Melanoma UK app. The project financed by Vitaccess is based on profit share with the charity Melanoma UK, and the Vitaccess team couldn’t be more proud to see its first app-based research study reach that key milestone.
Subscriptions from pharmaceutical company researchers to access the anonymised and aggregated dataset collected since the start of the project, enable Vitaccess to make this donation.
The study app collects data from people living with melanoma, such as quality of life, treatment patterns, demographic and epidemiological data across all stages of disease, treatment, and beyond. The advantages of electronic data collection as opposed to paper data collection in a healthcare or clinical trial setting are well documented and include reduced administrative burden for participants and administrators; the avoidance of errors in data collection and entry; and fewer items of missing data.
Data is collected in the real-world setting using “bring your own device” (BYOD) technology – participants use their own smartphone to complete questionnaires and surveys at their own convenience. A brand new rewards scheme launched last month gives participants the chance to raise money for Melanoma UK by raising £1 per survey.
The app features are updated regularly to enhance user experience. Vitaccess send out regular patient feedback surveys and host calls and workshops to take into account what patients think could improve the Melanoma UK app.
This study helps the research community to understand how people are during what has become routine treatment, and afterwards. The pilot stage is collecting data in the UK but the plan is to extend data collection globally in the US, Europe and Australia.
Dr Mark Larkin, Vitaccess CEO commented: “We are thrilled to have reached the point where we can give back to the community with this donation. A lot of work has gone into the creation of the Melanoma UK app and it is very rewarding not only to hear how useful it is to patients, but to be able to support projects that are meaningful for them, such as mole mapper units going into NHS hospitals. The collection of real-world evidence provides a map of how melanoma impacts the daily life of patients in near real-time. Access to this information helps not only the industry in their research but also academic researchers who can access it for free by application to the scientific board.”
Diane Cannon, corporate partnership director at Melanoma UK, added: “With this app, Mark’s team has provided Melanoma UK with the first digital registry of its kind. Bringing patients a tool that allows them to manage their condition whilst helping research at the same time was a ground-breaking idea. To now see them supporting Melanoma UK in our bid to equip as many NHS hospitals as possible with Adamo’s body mole mappers is such a tangible and game-changing result of our partnership. Mole analysing and body mapping technology helps detect melanoma and skin cancer very early on and, as we’ve seen thanks to the registry, the outcomes look more positive when you get diagnosed early.”
