Effective Management of Chronic Conditions Can Save Lives Worldwide

Medicine adherence technologies can help national health services curb the rise of chronic diseases

The latest research shows that chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes now account for 70 percent (40 million) of deaths worldwide, with the figure in the UK, a startling 90 percent. Nicholas Rumble, CEO of Curaizon discusses the factors at play, and looks at how national health services can fight back to save more lives.

According to the latest BMJ research, almost half of adults and around 8 percent of children aged 5 to 17 years old worldwide have a chronic condition. And although medications can provide relief, the fact that an estimated 50 percent of people do not adhere to their long term therapy for these illnesses, medicine non-adherence has become a huge problem for many health services globally.

A big contributor to these common and costly long-term health problems is attributed to an ageing population and significant changes in societal behaviours. The World Health Organization predicts that chronic disease prevalence is expected to rise by 57 percent by the year 2020. However, it is not all doom and gloom. There are several opportunities for new global and national actions, including strengthened interaction and partnerships; regulatory, legislative and fiscal approaches; and more stringent accountability mechanisms.

Digitisation and technological advancements offer new ways to fight back against NCDs. Worldwide access to technology and its influence mean that new delivery models are emerging to address growing chronic care demands. Enhanced and standardized data analysis can be effective in areas such as predictive medicine, patient relationship management, management of healthcare and measuring the effectiveness of certain treatments.

As the amount of data grows, health sciences will have a better understanding of the precise nature of diseases and pathways to develop personalised treatments. Use of these new technologies will place a greater emphasis on preventive health solutions and patient-centric care.

As worldwide pressures on healthcare systems grow, so will the need for cross border collaboration. Working together offers governments and their healthcare systems the opportunity to offset growing financial burdens, enhance service efficiencies and deliver better outcomes.

A pioneer in medicine adherence technologies, Curaizon has developed new and unique solutions to enhance healthcare systems worldwide. These include CuraServe, CuraView and CuraData. Here are some real world examples of the technologies in action.

Patient

John visits his doctor because he has recently lost weight, despite feeling hungry and thirsty. After having a blood test, he learns that he has type-2 diabetes and needs to take insulin on a regular basis. As part of his treatment, John is enrolled in CuraServe.

Shortly after John leaves, he is sent a notification from CuraServe welcoming him to the service. John will now receive a series of reminders to ensure he takes his medicines and he is also monitored to check on how often he takes the medicines as prescribed.

CuraServe has a built-in safety net and can notify John’s partner, or another designated person if he fails to take his medication. Each time John takes his medications as intended, Curaizon makes a small donation to a charity of John’s choosing. This is an incentive for John to engage with the service and stay healthy.

This adherence data is shared with John’s healthcare provider who, through CuraView, is able to see his adherence rates in real-time, allowing for intervention before John’s adherence levels become unsafe. This immediate feedback mechanism to the provider allows continued adjustments to John’s care to help him stay in optimum health. In addition, John’s partner and family are happy that he is supported by CuraServe because it enhances their efforts toward his well-being and improves the chances he will remain healthy and out of the hospital.

The data collected from John, along with data from hundreds of thousands of others just like him, is analyzed by Curaizon’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and neural network systems. These tools build behavioral modeling and early intervention tools that can be used by those engaged in John’s care. By modeling this data, Curaizon is also able to build first-of-its-kind advanced analytics of patient lifecycles. Anyone from academia and healthcare providers to pharmaceutical companies can benefit from this rich data.

By democratizing these data streams, Curaizon is able to inform and inspire the next generation of medicines and healthcare; made possible by the unique data. And as collaborators engage with the data, they are able to augment their own into the ecosystem for a tokenized reward, reducing costs for them, while enhancing and adding value to the overall data set, which also serves to reward token holders through increased prices.

Researcher

Nicole is an MD/PhD researcher studying the effects of an existing medication and how helpful it is when prescribed to a specific group of patients. She needs data that can tell her how many patients take the medication, how often they take it as prescribed, and how it affects their short and long-term health.

After evaluating different data options, she learns that Curaizon, through CuraData, is the only source for the data she needs. Nicole is pleased to find out that she doesn’t have to rely on “old” data, but instead can evaluate how patients are responding in real-time. She contacts Curaizon and learns that she can make queries into the database using CuraTokens.

Nicole’s request is handled by by Curaizon and she is guided through the data interrogation price algorithm. Nicole decides upon a model of interrogation and is directed to the relevant platform to purchase the requisite number of tokens. Nicole ‘redeems’ her tokens in return for the pre-agreed data access.

Once Nicole has completed her examination and analysis of the data, she is able to complete her research project. The findings and data output from this study are highly insightful and would be a valuable addition to the CuraData repository, so Curaizon agrees to exchange her newly compiled data in return for an agreed number of tokens, which can be used for a future project requiring access to the ever-growing datasets. CuraData then makes a donation to the charities chosen by the patients whose records have been used in Nicole’s research.

Healthcare

While probing billions of data points to build its deep learning analysis tools, Curaizon is able to better inform concepts such as prescribing practices, treatment optimization, multi-morbidity efficiencies and red-flag issues that exist within drug groupings, demographics and other specific problems within the value-chain of care. This data and information will drive major efficiencies within healthcare, improving the quality of care and drastically improving patient outcomes while reducing waste. By providing healthcare services with effective tools, Curaizon can help deliver the kind of services patients and healthcare providers want and need.