Project Overview

The incidence of arthritis conditions is projected to increase markedly as the number of older adults in Canada increases. Currently, the diagnosis and care of arthritis and its symptoms occurs at clinics and hospitals. Unfortunately, this is expensive to healthcare systems, inconvenient for patients, involves extensive waiting lists for services and ultimately leads to insufficient monitoring of patients’ symptoms. These issues are multiplied for Canada’s vulnerable senior population. The LiveWith Arthritis Plus (LWAP) platform addresses these problems by making heavy medical imaging equipment and diagnosis accessible by a smartphone and a web portal, in the convenience of the home. Having developed a successful prototype, the next obvious step is to ensure that LWAP meets the needs of end users, including older patients with arthritis, care providers and clinicians. This research will involve user studies in collaboration and consultation with key stakeholders including The Arthritis Society of Canada, Pain BC and Arthritis Consumer Experts. This research project will be led by Dr. Diane Gromala, Canada Research Chair and Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Gromala brings extensive experience in the field of human-computer interaction and has a decade of experience collaborating on CIHR-funded arthritis research. The successful completion of this project will enhance our understanding of the specific needs of older users regarding technology and chronic disease self-management, align research with the commercialization requirements for medical devices, enable eTreatMD to proceed with future clinical trials of LWAP and ultimately position the company to launch LWAP nationwide in 2018. This collaborative research will also generate end-user interest and trust, in order to ensure that this initial market push is done with a product that has been validated and meets relevant users’ needs. eTreatMD projects that total downloads for LWAP could reach 200,000 new users globally by 2019.