New App Tracks Real Time Hepatitis C Drug Response

A new medical app will allow patients to evaluate their response to hepatitis C treatment in real time.

An article reported in iMedicalApps notes that the app was released by Boston Children’s Hospital to collect information on a patient’s health status. The health app uses short surveys to ask patients questions regarding their antiviral medication, and how often they miss work because of HCV-related issues.

Researchers behind this study believe there are effective HCV medications that have become available in recent years, but that there are limited data on how patients respond to these drugs in their everyday lives, reported iMedicalApps.

The app sends out occasional reminders to participants that encourages them to complete their in-app surveys. Furthermore, a reminder is sent out every 4 months to urge patients to fill out an overall survey.

To protect privacy, the app does not collect any personal information that would identify individuals by name or birth day and, in compliance with HIPAA regulations, the app only requires users to give their year of birth.

Although the user’s name will appear within the application, it is not listed in the database. Boston Children’s Hospital noted that it does plan to share the research information from the study with others, as long as the user signs a consent form giving them permission to do so, according to iMedicalApps.

C Tracker is the latest addition to an extensive library of medical apps available for the iPhone.