The Challenge of Finding Support in Everyday Life

8765 Hours of Self-Care per Year 

Chronic disease patients make a lot of decisions and engage in behaviors that affect their health. Disease control and outcomes can often depend on the effectiveness of self-care, i.e. the ability to manage symptoms, treatment, physical and psychosocial consequences and lifestyle changes inherent to living with a chronic condition [1]. 

A chronic patient might only spend one hour per year in health care, and almost 9,000 hours per year in self-care! [2] That is one of the important reasons why we want to support patients with science-based, motivational and effective self-care.

An Ecosystem of Care

The Elsa Science platform brings individuals, families, patient organizations, health-care providers, scientists and life science  companies closer together for a greater good – to learn from each other and support individuals diagnosed with a chronic disease, supporting them to live life to its fullest.

Through meaningful content and design, Elsa makes science and current research accessible in the hands of the person living with a chronic disease. And through data sharing, the individual can invite the scientific and health-care community to draw experience from the real world. 

Elsa Science has a platform approach to finding, and following up on, the right treatment to the right patient by

  • supporting newly diagnosed patients and those in flare-ups, enabling them to cope and live life to its fullest

  • personalization of a holistic treatment from a patient perspective

  • being a catalyst for a Treat-to-Target approach in health-care

  • transformation of scientific findings into predictors for disease progression, response to (which) treatments, and for longer-term outcomes

  • enhancement of care quality and reduced costs

  • supporting patients in remission to keep-up healthy habits

Digital Tools & Patient Empowered Care

Elsa Science strongly believes that the management of chronic care can be improved by structured and true involvement of the patient. We call it “Patient Empowered Care”, where the patients’ everyday knowledge and insights about their disease activity can be key decision drivers when it comes to planning treatment and care.

In order to facilitate this, we are committed to developing new kinds of collaboration tools between patients and health-care providers. Tools that can support both parties, complementing current care practices and improving future care.

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Elsa Application – A Digital Companion

Our ambition is to support patients diagnosed with rheumatic conditions. Up until now we have focused on developing content and health programs for patients diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Our next step will be to further develop the support and add more rheumatic diagnoses.

In the Elsa Application patients can track and follow up on symptoms, habits and medication to better understand how these correlate. There is also educational support in the app, containing research based knowledge. In the care and management of the patient, Elsa Application can facilitate:

  • getting an early understanding of how the medical treatment is performing in the real world; from just a few days after initiation of medication, and onwards

  • increasinge the understanding of adherence

  • better following how pain, fatigue, tender and swollen joints and other symptoms are changing over time and how they are affected by prescribed and/or OTC medication and life-style factors

  • following the progression of the patients’ self-efficacy and quality of life, to strengthen the patient’s self-care

After setting up a personal plan, Elsa will guide the patient through everyday life. With software-driven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy interventions we have designed health programs, endorsed by health-care professionals. The programs offer support to patients with self-management techniques to better cope with their illness.

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Elsa Remote Patient Monitoring – A Means for Digitising Treat-to-Target 

The so-called Treat-to-Target strategy, including a specific remission-based goal, is thought to be effective because it encourages health-care practitioners to test the patients’ status more often and to be more flexible about making changes when a treatment plan isn’t working. 

In our Elsa Digital Companion Application patients can follow up on symptoms, medication and habits, and better understand how these correlate. Patients can also share their information with health-care professionals when appropriate through Elsa Remote Patient Monitoring. Facilitating and complementing the collaboration between health-care professionals and patients will:

  • give patients the possibility to better describe and visualize their everyday life, over time

  • allow the health-care professionals to monitor the treatment progression in real time 

  • help make decisions about whether the patient needs treatment adjustments and/or  a visit to the clinic

  • enhance health-care visits by providing well prepared and structured insights showing relevant changes over time

  • help make early decisions to change treatment, with the support of Real World Data

  • increase the understanding of patients’ self-efficacy and quality of life progression

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Elsa Rheumatic? – A Symptom Checker Tool for Enhanced Prevention

Diagnostic delay [3] is one of the current challenges in rheumatology. Rheumatic symptoms such as joint pain are hard to evaluate for patients and health-care providers [4-6]. Patients often wait too long before seeking treatment as they believe that the symptoms will resolve themselves [7] or be relieved through their own self-care [8]. 

Elsa Rheumatic? is a symptom checker tool, developed by patients, health-care professionals and UX designers, to better support individuals to seek treatment at an early stage of the disease onset.

Contact Us

If you want to get in touch with us and discuss how to better support people living with a chronic disease, please send us an email at hello@elsa.science

References

  1. MeSH: Self-management (2018). Https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/?term=self-management Accessed 20

  2. http://www.riggare.se/2012/10/20/healthcare-vs-selfcare/

  3. Raza K, Stack R, Kumar K, Filer A, Detert J, Bastian H, et al. Delays in assessment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis: variations across Europe. Ann Rheum Dis 2011 Aug 07;70(10):1822-1825

  4. Simons G, Belcher J, Morton C, Kumar K, Falahee M, Mallen CD, et al. Symptom Recognition and Perceived Urgency of Help-Seeking for Rheumatoid Arthritis and Other Diseases in the General Public: A Mixed Method Approach. Arthritis Care & Research 2017 Apr 10;69(5):633-641. 

  5. Simons G, Lumley S, Falahee M, Kumar K, Mallen CD, Stack RJ, et al. The pathway to consultation for rheumatoid arthritis: exploring anticipated actions between the onset of symptoms and face-to-face encounter with a healthcare professional. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2017 Jun 14;18(1). 

  6. Kumar K, Daley E, Carruthers DM, Situnayake D, Gordon C, Grindulis K, et al. Delay in presentation to primary care physicians is the main reason why patients with rheumatoid arthritis are seen late by rheumatologists. Rheumatology 2007 Jun 27;46(9):1438-1440.

  7. Raciborski F, Kłak A, Kwiatkowska B, Batko B, Sochocka-Bykowska M, Zoń-Giebel A, working team. Diagnostic delays in rheumatic diseases with associated arthritis. Reumatologia 2017;55(4):169-176

  8. Stack RJ, Nightingale P, Jinks C, Shaw K, Herron-Marx S, Horne R, et al. Delays between the onset of symptoms and first rheumatology consultation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the UK: an observational study. BMJ Open 2019 Mar 04;9(3):e024361.