Version 4 of Andaman7 now available

We are happy to announce the release of version 4 of Andaman7! 

• Add your own lab test to the list
  We have greatly extended the list of lab tests available based on users’ requests and most common lab tests usually performed. You still have lab tests that don’t appear in the list? Don’t worry! This much requested feature is now available in v4: Andaman7 allows you to add your own lab tests, giving you an even better control over keeping track of your health data.

• Filter and sort data in the timeline view
  This makes it easier for you to find and visualize the health information you need without having to scroll through endless pages of data or look in each separate section of your record.

• Prescriptions
  In the "Medications" section, you can now also add and/or see prescriptions, i.e. medication prescribed by a healthcare professional. Sometimes, the actual medications that you end up taking slightly differ from what was prescribed, so it can be interesting to see both. Prescriptions are also often present in data from your hospital (which you can import via the services tab in the app); now you’ll be able to see them!

• Medication diary can be shared
  In the diary tab of your “Medications” section, you can see the medications you need to take, day by day (after you added “Dosing” information on your medications). You can record your medication intakes for scheduled and on demand drugs. In version 4, this medication diary can be shared with your Circle of Trust. You can then help or get help from your loved ones and healthcare professionals to keep up with your treatment.

• New service to store links to online documents and accounts
  If you regularly connect to an online patient portal or if you have been given a link to an online document (for example a medical imaging test result), you can now store all of these links in Andaman7 for easy access.

• Data received from health entities: support of additional standard codes and better sorting in the right A7 sections
  Did you know that a lot of your digital health data is codified in order to allow for computer systems to “understand” each other? Several sets of “standard codes” exist, and we extended the list of standard codes we support, in order for you to be able to see the data you receive from your hospital in a “human readable” display.

In addition to these new features, we have also made a range of improvements to the user interface: 

• Refreshed look across the application
  We've added colors and modernized the look of the app. We've kept the same content for the screens so you don’t get lost in this new version ;)

• New app onboarding for new users
  Simplification of the app onboarding for new users, including for users downloading the app or one of its white label versions for specific services (such as for research purposes). If you want to know more about additional services that can be set in Andaman7, or white-label versions of our app, visit https://www.andaman7.com/en/additional-services or contact us at b2b@andaman7.com.

• Clearer display of data history and sharing to the CoT (Circle Of Trust)
  Sharing of data is very flexible with Andaman7, as we want to allow you to decide exactly what data you share for each record (full record or only parts of it), and with whom. You can also decide whether you want the sharing to be unidirectional (for example, only sending data to others) or bidirectional (also receiving updates from others). Given this flexibility, it can sometimes be a bit complex to figure out the sharing configuration set up. We've improved the display of sharing rules in the CoT to make it clearer and thus easier to understand.

These changes have been made with the goal of providing a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, while also ensuring that our product remains powerful and effective. We hope it will make your experience more efficient and enjoyable. 

The latest updates to Andaman7 promise to improve the user experience. With newly supported data (extended list of lab tests, prescriptions,...), data sharing and better data display,… Andaman7 is an even more powerful tool for anyone wishing to take control of their health data.

Vincent Keunen shares how two cancer diagnoses in the family motivated him to be a founder and improve healthcare to Dr. Deepak M. for Futur of Health tech.

1. Can you tell our audience about yourself?

My name is Vincent Keunen. I am the CEO and founder of Andaman7. I have developed multiple medical IT systems, including a secure data exchange platform that is utilized by over 90% of hospitals and family doctors in Belgium, as well as a prevention EHR for managing nearly one million individuals. 

After being diagnosed with leukemia in 2007, and my 10-year-old son with bone cancer soon after, I utilized my software engineering abilities to create a tool that allows patients to handle their health information via smartphones.

That platform can now be used to improve medical research by collecting RWE (Real World Evidence), EHR data and PRO (Patient Reported Outcomes) while facilitating DCT (decentralized clinical trials), HEOR (Health economics and outcomes research) and post-market studies, quality of life surveys, telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and continuity of care. You can read our story at http://bit.ly/a7vkblogen

2. Can you tell our audience about Andaman7?

Andaman7 was created in 2014, and we’re located in NY (USA) and Liège (Belgium).

Andaman7 is a Belgian-American digital health company focused on improving healthcare and medical research for patients, doctors, and researchers. The company’s particular strengths are in Real World Data (RWD), Quality of Life (QoL), Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) and HEOR studies. We enable secondary use of data coming from hospital EHRs, lab results, devices data and surveys directly from patients.  Andaman7 is the first platform enabling “patient mediated research”.

Andaman7 ‘s patient centric health intermediation platform is designed to: 

1 – help patients better manage their health data  

2 – enable outcome measurement for pharma and research  

3 – support disease management for hospitals and doctors.   

Andaman7’s unique “security by design and privacy by default” architecture does not store medical data in the cloud. Data is only stored on the edge of the network (on mobile devices) and exchanged in a distributed peer to peer method. 

As I explained above, I’ve created Andaman7 after a difficult personal journey (2 cancers in the family).

3. What problem is Andaman7 solving & how? 

Andaman7 is solving the problem of fragmented health records and inefficient communication between patients, clinical researchers and healthcare practitioners. The traditional paper-based health records and fragmented digital records across different healthcare systems can cause delays, errors, and miscommunications, which can ultimately result in poor health outcomes for patients. Clinical research is also hampered by poor health data quality and availability.

Andaman7’s platform allows patients to store their health records on their smartphone – a guarantee of total privacy and high security.  Then the research industry can invite patients to contribute to research by answering questionnaires and sharing part of their EHR data.

4. What have been the biggest achievements of Andaman7? 

Andaman7 has pioneered a number of important initiatives like patient mediated research, decentralized clinical trials (DCT), the unique combination of a PHR (Personal Health Record) for patients with tools for research (ePRO, eCOA…), the storage of all health data on the edge (on the smartphone, not in the cloud), as well as a number of technical innovations serving business needs in a very efficient manner (see  http://bit.ly/a7TechInno).

We are proud to serve patients first in their need to control their health data, then offer them ways to contribute to clinical research.

5. What have been the biggest challenges for Andaman7 & how did you overcome them?

The market is extremely fragmented and most solutions have a national market (EHR vendors mainly) while clinical research is often an international project.

The lack of interoperability is one of the most frustrating problems, even though it has improved in the US in the past years (but not in other parts of the world).

6. What are you most excited about in healthcare at present? How do you anticipate healthcare will change in the next 5 years?

Many stakeholders mention “patients first” in their communication but don’t do anything concrete for patients.  Andaman7 was created by patients (see http://bit.ly/a7vkblogen) and we aimed at offering a solution to patients before anything else: now, with Andaman7, patients can get a copy of their health data locally on their smartphone and be in full control of that data.  It is useful for them to understand their condition better, follow its evolution, ask for a second opinion, and globally be in control of their health data, hence of their health.  This is the social project of Andaman7, and everything is free for patients.

Then, in a second step, we offer to patients to contribute to clinical research and be part of studies (clinical trials, DCT, phase 4 studies, post-market and HEOR studies,…).  

Sponsors pay Andaman7 to run the studies, thanks to our advanced mobile tools for clinical research (eConsent, ePRO, eCRF, drug management, pseudonymisation…). 

What is unique is that our clinical research tools run on the same platform as the PHR of patients… this leads to more complete, rich and up-to-date information for sponsors (including what is called “real world data”).

7. Do you have any other key messages for the audience?

It’s important to really include patients in clinical research.  Real World Evidence is becoming a necessity.  And Andaman7 is pioneering “Patient mediated research”.

Contact Details

• Business website: https://www.andaman7.com
• Business address: Rue Wagner 127, 4100 Boncelles, Belgium
• Business email : vincent.keunen@andaman7.com 
• Business Social Media links: Andaman7 Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin
• Personal Social Media Links: Vincent Keunen Twitter, Linkedin

See the full article here and on our digital archives. 

Andaman7 is proud to join EHTEL

Organisational description

Andaman7 is the first solution to support all three actors - patients, care providers and researchers - in their battle for better healthcare. With its unique, patient-mediated technology platform, Andaman7 helps manage diseases, measure outcomes, and empower patients all over the world and can support, partner or offer a white label service – usable under their own organisational label – to all stakeholders across the health and research ecosystem. Andaman7 was launched in 2014 and has been developed over several years (and is being continuously improved). Based in Belgium and NY, USA, it serves an international range of clients. 

Activities and interests with respect to digital health

Andaman7 includes  modules for decentralised clinical trials, real-world evidence (RWE), quality of life studies, electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO), and electronic clinical outcome assessments (eCOA). These modules make decentralised research trials easier, cheaper, and better for all stakeholders across the spectrum. 

Andaman7’s specialist expertise also covers: 

• Personalised, citizen-centric tools with a focus on data protection 
• RWE to complement the focused parameters studied in traditional clinical trials, get insights on drugs usage and new applications, and support post-marketing studies
• A life-course overview for longitudinal studies, particularly exploring data hidden in time for complex conditions like cancers and rare diseases
• Diversity of data enabled by digital solutions, global interoperability, and the potential for developing countries, for example, to skip costly healthcare and trial infrastructure. 

To learn more visit: www.andaman7.com

Source: EHTEL website article and A7 digital archives