A message appears on Anna's smartphone; it's time for her next injection. The 19-year-old suffers from psoriasis and has to inject herself regularly with a medication. Anna is a little nervous, because the needle, the prick and the slight pain still make her feel uncomfortable. With the support of the app on her smartphone and her YpsoMate auto-injector, combined with the SmartPilot, she gets over herself, administers the injection that is due and is delighted when a treasure chest opens on the screen and golden light pours out. It shows her that she has done everything right.
The case described is fictitious and an example of what self-treatment with digital accompaniment will look like in the future. In many areas of life, people already use apps on their smartphones to organize themselves better in everyday life. They receive reminders to drink regularly, exercise, or keep to their sleep schedules. We want to use this development to better support chronically ill people in their everyday lives and have therefore entered into a strategic partnership with Sidekick Health.
Taking patients by the hand in their daily therapy routine
Self-treatment at home is an important starting point for reducing the burden of chronic complaints for those affected and relieving the burden on the healthcare system. However, this entails a high degree of self-responsibility and self-organization for patients. In order to reduce the pressure on those affected, the Sidekick app offers important support, for example by helping users to set personal goals and to pursue them continuously. The app also provides a coach, who is in regular contact with the user, monitors progress, encourages him or her to persist on therapy and is available to answer questions. In this way, an interactive process develops that does not leave the affected person and their environment feeling isolated, because family members and caregivers also receive important information, such as instructions and tips about the disease and the therapy.
On the way to becoming a provider of integrated healthcare services
Our injection systems combined with Sidekick's expertise form a unique solution that provides a motivating and personalized patient experience for people with chronic diseases. We thus provide our pharmaceutical customers with a ready-made, digital therapy management system. In particular, it gives them better insight into treatment adherence and efficacy. The self-injection module will be clinically validated and, where indicated, developed in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements for software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD).
Overall, successful therapy management significantly reduces the financial burden on the entire healthcare system in the long term and at the same time provides continuous, yet flexible care that can be tailored to the individual.
