David Beiser, MD, developed Qualia Health, a free app to measure a patient’s well-being, according to a U Chicago News report.
Here are five key notes on the app:
1. The app focuses on well-being beyond the blood draws or X-ray tests physicians typically rely on. The app tracks patients like Fitbit or Jawbone to measure distance traveled and quickness. The app also examines weight and meal choices.
2. The Qualia app tracks mental health, anxiety, social connectedness and relationship satisfaction, with an algorithm choosing questions based on the answers already given. Patients receive a Q-score after answering all of the health questions.
3. Dr. Beiser and his team are working on ways to give personalized suggestions to users for better health, including finding stairs instead of the elevator with the GPS or suggesting gyms when people move locations.
4. The app has gone through clinical trial applications to track heart failure patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices, which are expensive. Another study measured how accurately the app could predict the patients’ mood in compared with the patients’ perceptions.
5. Dr. Beiser submitted a grant proposal for future studies with Stanford, Northwestern and the University of Chicago.