What has happened in iManageCancer’s first year?

One year in, the iManageCancer project already has a great deal to be proud of. The first major milestone delivering the first vertical prototype of the online platform has been delivered, the first review with the European Commission has been successfully passed and now we plan for the next exciting phase.

In February all eight iManageCancer partners gathered in Luton, the home ground of key project member University of Bedfordshire, to examine progress to date.

First off, work defining the overall concept of the platform and determining system requirements is complete; groundwork is now in place to allow different components to be built up. Basic platform architecture has been decided, governing how the various components and services hang together.

For this, the European Institute of Oncology interviewed clinicians and cancer patients to explore their needs and wishes in empowerment technology, plus a legal and ethical framework has been set up to govern the rest of the technical design.

The ethics side of things has seen the introduction of a new work package: this will deal with crucial regulations around consent for research participants, personal data protection, and related issues all overseen by an external Independent Ethics Adviser. We are welcoming Prof Alena Buyx of the University of Kiel in this capacity, and with her years of experience this section of the project will be watertight.

Other achievements involve investigations that have been made into existing state of the art data mining tools, serious games, personal health information recommender (PHIR) systems, relevant software standards and psychological monitoring/management tools, to ensure that our new services take the best from what’s available and really build on these ideas.

The creation of the much talked about serious games is well underway, with Promotion Software and University of Bedfordshire now in the design phase. Current work includes experimenting with different game elements through the creation of mock-ups and exploration of mini-games.

The game for adults plans to feature a Sims-like set-up, where players can perform small tasks representing activities that will help them in real life, all to enhance the wellbeing of their avatar.

For children, we’ve planned a fun game involving a small spacecraft travelling through the body shooting cancer cells. The designs resemble a classic, fun computer game and we can’t wait to show off the look of it in a future newsletter.

Other work on tracking patients’ vital signs, daily activity and general mood will focus on gathering data through devices and applications such as FitBits and Moves. The first version of the patient diary has been formed to integrate with all other features.

Finally, early plans are being laid to begin pilots of the mobile services on adult cancer patients, so we can find out just how much the tools created will help to empower people living with cancer in their day to day lives.

It’s now full speed ahead for the next target: the unveiling of the first working prototype version of the platform, ready for user testing, in October this year. We look forward to sharing all of this with you as it happens.