Back Pain Tracker Smartphone App for Longitudinal Assessment of Patient Reported Outcomes - Abstract
We propose to develop back-end interface and interoperability features for “Back Pain Tracker”, a smart-phone
app based on the NIH Research Standards for Chronic Back Pain and PROMIS Computer Adaptive Tests. The
proposed work will prepare this innovation for commercialization. Considerations for commercialization
strategy are customizations or licensing partnerships with clinical practices, EMR companies, integrated health
systems, or national societies that measure and compare patient outcomes. Major substitutable products that
already exists are GeoPain (MoxyTech, Inc.), My Pain Diary & Symptom Tracker (DamoLab, LLC), PainScale
(Boston Scientific, Inc.), Year in Pixels (Valley Software), Flaredown (Flaredown), CatchMyPain (Sanovation
AG.), Manage My Pain (ManagingLife, Inc.), WebMD Mobile Pain Coach (WebMD LLC), and iBeatPain for
Teens (Take The Wind, Lda.). The closest competitor to the company's technology is My Pain Diary &
Symptom Tracker by DamoLab LLC. The product can track the location and intensity of the patient's pain,
update a medication log, note the weather, look back at all past entries, and graph trends over time.
Our value proposition is best-in-class PROs (Patient Reported Outcomes) assessment that complies with the
highest standards established by the NIH for clinical research on cLBP. Our product, Back Pain Tracker, is
designed to allow patients to directly understand their pain and function scores compared to others of similar
age and sex. This intellectual property is protected by two patents: U.S. Patent Application entitled: SYSTEM
AND METHODS FOR INTERACTIVE HEALTH CARE, Application No. 15/470,819, Filing Date 3/27/17; and
U.S Patent Application entitled: INTERACTIVE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM FOR MANAGING BACK OR NECK
PAIN, File No. 408/0002R, Filing Date 9/5/2018. By using the app the PROs trends reflect the observations
through a time period, not restricted by dependence on the most recent memory. The app has utility at all
treatment phases: diagnosis, pre-surgical physical therapy (PT), pharmacological therapy (pharma), surgical
preparation, and post-surgical PT, pharma and follow-up evaluation. Finally, the app has applications in
personalized medicine, recording and analysis of patient centered outcomes relying on an interaction between
healthcare provider and patient on the definitions of treatment goals; a common data-based foundation for
shared decision making, particularly about surgery; and a basic design that can be applied to other orthopedic
conditions. We have expertise in the area of patient reported outcomes monitoring for pain and expertise in the
clinical needs and requirements for treatment of pain including surgical procedures. Key problems identified
with current technologies for tracking and reporting patient outcomes for pain include collection of patient
treatment data in surveys and related to outcomes, issues with reliability and reproducibility, and all major EMR
systems used in the USA do not support self-reported pain management data from patients. Goals of this
project are (1) to develop a dashboard for clinics to manage patients and analyze groups, (2) develop the
ability for clinics to customize app functions to create a personalized experience, and (3) integrate the
application with an EMR system.
