THCB frequently spotlights Health 2.0 startups that are using Web 2.0 technology in new and innovative ways to solve healthcare challenges. Today we feature Erick and Linda Von Schweber, the developers of a new web-based system that allows consumers to better manage their drug regimens, allowing users to understand the trade offs involved with different drugs and reduce the odds of a potentially serious interaction. Look for more profiles of up and coming Health 2.0 startups and posts by Health 2.0 developers and entrepreneurs in the weeks to come.
Americans are worried; millions visit web sites multiple times each month looking for information on drug side effects, interactions and efficacy, but they say their needs are not being met by the simplistic data they find. This community-in-the-making is not paranoid; adverse drug effects (ADEs) are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, killing 218,000 people a year, yet 150,000 of those deaths are deemed avoidable if only available knowledge could be identified and effectively applied.The barrier is complexity: the typical senior, on a regimen of eight drugs, can have as many as 40 trillion alternate regimens to choose from that vary widely on ADEs, efficacy and cost. Even the typical baby boomer, on a regimen of four to six drugs, faces a trade space of millions of choices. The only recourse is reading drug information sheets and using a drug interaction checker. But these only flag problems; they don’t offer solutions.
The patient, their family
members and their physicians and pharmacists have had no means to
navigate this astronomically vast and non-linear trade space; no
decision support to identify the regimens that make the best trade-offs
for the individual patient. Until now. PharmaSURVEYOR is a
free-to-consumer web application for navigating, personalizing and
optimizing drug regimens across safety, efficacy and value.
PharmaSURVEYOR starts with FDA data and also captures real world
community knowledge of drugs used in combination over months and years
and applies it to the benefit of all.
By using PharmaSURVEYOR to improve your own safety you’re contributing
valuable information and experience back to the community, knowledge
that may save others and potentially even yourself. Given a patient’s
current regimen of drugs, conditions, and suspected adverse effects,
PharmaSURVEYOR’s ground-breaking technology rapidly searches the vast
space of potential drug regimens, identifies those regimens that make
the best safety trade-offs for the patient, then generates a community
report that compares these superior options side-by-side with the
patient’s current regimen. The patient, family members, physicians and
pharmacists can work together to weigh the risks and benefits of the
patient’s current regimen against the superior options discovered by
PharmaSURVEYOR. PharmaSURVEYOR protects patients from adverse drug
effects so they can live longer and safer.
PharmaSURVEYOR is currently accepting applications to join our beta program which will start early in 2008. The site will launch later in the year. We’re looking for study and pilot partners Consumers & Families Pharmacies & Customers Physicians & Patients Researchers & Communities. Email Linda at pharmasurveyor dot com.
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Clearly a wonderful new technology destined to save many lives – and bring the pharmaceutical industry into the 21st century!