Gurgaon, Haryana Feb 2, 2020 (Issuewire.com) - Traditionally, cancer cure has been managed through multiple visits to the doctor, starting from diagnosis followed by frequent visits to reconfirm the diagnosis and treatment requirements. Empirical data shows that this is true for developed countries as well, where patients who are fully covered with insurance, visit minimum 3 oncologists before starting the treatment. Developing countries like India face an even bigger challenge.
In South Asian countries, patients run from pillar to post trying to identify the best possible treatment at affordable price, since insurance is under-penetrated making cancer treatment a very expensive affair. The journey of the cancer patient is often a lonely one where the patient visits include not only the routine chemotherapy or radiation therapy sessions, but also the undesired complications that may arise as a side effect of the treatment itself. In many cases, additional visits are needed if the cancer growth has not stopped despite the treatment. Since cancer is a disease which has a higher penetration in the 50-years plus age group, the conditions for care get even more complicated.
Cancer Rounds, claiming to be world’s first virtual cancer care hospital, has come up with novel solutions to tackle the aforesaid problems. Its remote monitoring program seeks to identify high-risk patients and provide a customized dashboard based on patients’ cancer type. The customization is done with symptom trackers that help monitor patient’s day-to-day progress of treatment, with an ability to pick a blip in the symptoms that are then directly reported on the mobile phone of oncologist. This allows the cancer specialist to advise a course of action in timely manner. The tracker allow the virtual hospital to keep patients in its line of sight beyond their hospital rooms, and lowers communication gaps between patient and the doctor.
Dr Rahul Bhargava, the chief medical officer of Cancer Rounds, is running a pilot for his leukemia patients to closely monitor the symptoms over a period of 6 months. The formation of cancer care team by Cancer Rounds effectively reduces the burden on the oncologist alone.
“The total cost of managing cancer patients runs into few billion dollars every year in India, and most of the cost is attributed to costly medicines and hospital stays. If we can build a digital layer for managing cancer and reduce the cost involved in cancer treatment, then we know that we are adding real value to the society. Cancer Rounds is constantly innovating to help positively impact the cancer treatment ecosystem and this is a significant step towards increasing survival rates of cancer patients,” said Ashwin Srivastava, a serial entrepreneur and investors who steers the growth plans for the start-up.
Sumit Wadhwa, founder of Cancer Rounds, elaborated the rationale behind the core team that manages cancer patients remotely. He says that the team can comprise up to 5 caregivers including oncologist, nutritionist, psychologist, nurse, and local referral physician. This set of core team members managing the symptoms on mobile makes it easy to intervene at the right time and also provide a speedy response to the underlying issue.
“Such proactive management of cancer by using technology not only improves the communication between the doctor and the patient, but also leads to improved compliance of medicines’ intake. The goal of any treatment is to improve the rate of survival along with the best of quality of life that the patient can witness given the circumstances at hand; this model of remote monitoring works on both the aspects”, adds Sumit, about the impact of this simple yet innovative program.
In an independent study done in New York, it was found that acute & unplanned admission account for 48% of the total cost in treating cancer. Trial data by Cancer Rounds show that remote monitoring can not only save adverse impact, by controlling minor infections in a timely manner, but can also decrease the cost of treatment by around 10-15%, while simultaneously increasing the quality of life. Sumit further shares a trial case.
“To elaborate it further, consider a chronic myeloid leukemia patient who needs to be on medicines for the rest of his life to manage his platelets and hemoglobin. Now, once the patient tracks his symptoms and reports a blip in fever which may be an indication of underlying infection due to change in blood counts, the oncologist can direct the patient to immediately go for complete blood count and report further. The changes can then be managed by titrating the medicines and controlling the infections early, instead of the patient reaching a stage where both infection and the blood count has gone beyond control in out patient department and may need a prolonged ICU admission. Such minor blips in the symptoms can bring drastic changes in the way cancers are managed, thereby leading to reduced hospitalization when not necessary and a timely hospitalization which can prove to be life saving”, informs Sumit based on the trial cases that Cancer Rounds is currently running.
Media Contact
Cancer Rounds ashwin@cancerrounds.com http://www.cancerrounds.com
