Brisbane-based medical practice management software provider Genie Solutions and men's health charity the Movember Foundation announced a partnership to provide a suite of digital tools to help men with prostate cancer manage their health.
Through the partnership, Movember's True North digital health products will be integrated with Genie software, which will enable men living with prostate cancer to fill out online questionnaires.
The questionnaires are designed to help these men regularly track and follow up on changes to physical and mental health over time and help them understand the experiences of other men receiving similar treatment.
"Many clinicians are currently working in a vacuum," Movember Foundation Executive Director of Programs Paul Villanti said in a statement. "They don't have access to the data that enables them to understand whether men diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer have got back to living a normal life, or are doing it tough."
Villanti explained that by joining forces with Genie, Movember could improve its support for men living with prostate cancer by ensuring that the right resources and information from True North reaches patients and clinicians when they most need it.
In addition, the software can help those affected receive personalised and tailored insights on managing treatment side effects and share responses with treating clinicians for care management and follow-up.
The partnership will also fast-track the provision of clinical and patient data to the National Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry (a large-scale prostate cancer registry that collects information on care provided and outcomes for men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Australia and New Zealand) in an effort to help clinicians and hospitals streamline reporting and documentation processes.
"The integration with Movember's True North program will deliver our urologist customers with practice efficiency benefits whilst contributing to the broader fight against prostate cancer," Genie CEO James Scollay said in a statement. "This is just the beginning: Movember shares our passion for innovation and we're excited to see where the partnership leads to from here."
The two organizations also noted that while the partnership will focus solely on men living with prostate cancer at the outset, in the future the scope of the project could be extended to include other types of cancers as well.
It is estimated that nearly 20,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in Australia this year, with approximately 200,000 men living with or beyond the disease already, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
In an effort to improve its testing and screening reach, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) just released an online tool in August that is designed to help empower men with a better understanding of the PSA test for prostate cancer—the PSA test guide can be used by men before discussing testing with their doctor.
