CancerHelp iPad Apps for Patients on Chemotherapy and Clinical Trials

The first iPad App from the CancerHelp Institute is our "Learning More About Chemotherapy." The App brings several import learning programs together for patients and those that care for them. The main feature is our "Listen and Learn" module based on the booklet Chemotherapy and You: Support for People with Cancer from the National Cancer Institute.

CancerHelp's iPad App: Learn More About Chemotherapy 

The Listen and Learn program for Chemotherapy and You lets patient go at their own pace and engage with the content through interactive features such as dictionary term look up and Questions for Understanding. The Listen and Learn program also supports patients and caregivers with low energy, English as a Second Language patients, and persons with low literacy skills.
Sample menu item from the "Learning More About Chemotherapy" iPad App

The iPad makes it convenient for users to learn while receiving chemotherapy or in clinic waiting rooms. The iPad can be used stand-alone or on a rolling cart with extender arm for user comfort while learning.

The App can also include video of your facilities doctors or nurses encouraging patients to learn more. Health studies show that the more patients learn about their treatment, the better their health outcomes because they are able to anticipate and cope with things like side effects.

Two other important and easy-to-read resources include access to the NCI's Understanding Chemotherapy 4 page sheet and all of the Managing Chemotherapy Side Effects (18 topics in all) series.

Sample menu item for Managing Chemotherapy Side Effects from the "Learning More About Chemotherapy" iPad App 

The CancerHelp Institute is also developing an iPad App for cancer patient education on Cancer Clinical Trials. The app will have an engaging "Listen and Learn" program of the NCI's Booklet "Taking Part in Cancer Treatment Research Studies." 

Next up for our iPad App development are titles for Learning More about Breat Cancer and Learning More About Radiation Therapy. Each uses trusted content from the National Cancer Institute.

CancerHelp's New Learning Cart for Infusion Rooms

Last November and again in February 2012 I was in San Diego to help set up two of our new CancerHelp Learning Carts for 2 chemotherapy infusion room locations. The locations are part of Kaiser Permanente, the largest health care provider in California. It was exciting to have a way that patients and caregivers can learn while in the chemotherapy suite. The Learning Cart fits nicely over the large reclining chairs that patients sit in and allows them to have their feet fully extended if they want.

One of the things we heard from nurses is that they would appreciate having a way to dialogue with patients about what questions they have that the CancerHelp program can help answer. While we were in San Diego, we developed a draft of a flyer with "Questions I Have Today". The flyer lists topics that patients can go through in the Learning Center Module of Chemotherapy and You with full spoken audio. the flyer also lists the types of side effects from chemotherapy which are in also in CancerHelp. To see the flyer, click here.

 

CancerHelp Lessons from Doing Patient Outcomes Research

The CancerHelp Institute has been participating in research using our user-friendly touchscreen learning programs to find out if it helps improve patient knowledge and health outcomes. The research is with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and their Department of Medical Social Sciences. For the study involving CancerHelp, CancerHelp desk learning kiosks were placed at 3 locations in Chicago.

Celia Muench, CancerHelp's Executive Director testing the CancerHelp Desk Learning Kiosk at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County as part of Patient Outcomes Research

CancerHelp iPad Apps Coming Soon

You've told us you want CancerHelp Apps for iPad and we listened. Recently two of our CancerHelp subscribers, the New Jersey Cancer Institute and Banner Good Samaratan M.D. Anderson in Arizona asked us about having the CancerHelp ease-of-use and topics for iPads. We are currently developing our "Chemotherapy and You: Support for People with Cancer" Learning Center modules with spoken audio into our first iPad App. Since so many cancer patients are treated with chemotherapy, we wanted to start with our content from the full text of the NCI's award winning booklet.

The CancerHelp Institute has also been asked by two groups to help develop iPad software for patient education research. The University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center has asked us to develop a proposal to make iPad software for patients to learn about cancer clinical trials. Using booklet content from the National Cancer Institute's "Taking Part in Cancer Research Studies" and their video "Understanding Cancer Clinical Trials".

Cancer Clinical Trials iPad App Main Menu with content from the NCI and "Topics for Your Next Doctor Visit" and Video from the Clinical Trials Physician