iManageCancer and MyHealthAvatar: what could the future hold for the union of these projects?

MyHealthAvatar has been designed as a life-long companion of individual citizens for healthcare. This is set to contribute to a new shift in future healthcare systems where citizens will be given more power and will make more commitment to their own healthcare, raising positive attitudes towards healthy lifestyles.

The consistent health records stored in MyHealthAvatar will also help doctors know more about their patients’ medical history. From a more general perspective, citizen empowerment has recently attracted a great deal of attentions in healthcare. MyHealthAvatar contributes to new research in this direction.

iManageCancer shares the same perspective of self-management in healthcare but with a focus on cancer patient care by providing a patient-friendly mobile phone platform that allows for a range of self-management services for cancer patients. Given the significant conceptual overlap, the potential of the interaction between MyHealthAvatar and iManageCancer is inherently strong.

These two platforms offer self-management services at different stages; MyHealthAvatar is designed for healthy citizens in general healthcare and iManageCancer is designed for people diagnosed with cancer.

Data exchange between these two platforms will be very interesting. For example, the data from MyHealthAvatar may offer significant amounts of health information about cancer patients pre-illness, which could be beneficial to their treatment by when using the iManageCancer platform.

iManageCancer and MyHealthAvatar share a great deal of common ground in terms of technologies. In light of the rapid change in the technology landscape in recent years, iManageCancer has the opportunities of further exploring technological advance based on the experience and work from MyHealthAvatar.

We have enjoyed the knowledge and experience exchange between these two projects so far and we believe this collaboration will continue for the benefit of both projects.