Manage My Pain Being Deployed at 4 Ontario Chronic Pain Sites

TORONTO, Jan. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Four Ontario healthcare sites will deploy "Manage My Pain", an app-based chronic pain management and monitoring tool.  "Manage My Pain" allows chronic pain sufferers with conditions like fibromyalgia, back pain, and migraines to record how they are feeling so they can better understand their pain and communicate with their physicians.  The four healthcare sites, which include two urban hospitals, one community care clinic, and a rural family health team, can then use "Manage My Pain" to remotely monitor the progress of their patients' pain, function, and medication use outside the clinic and in between visits.

Non-cancer chronic pain affects 15-19% of the Canadian population, and is the primary cause of health care resource consumption and disability among working age adults.  Beyond pain, Canada is dealing with an "opioid crisis" as the largest per capita consumers of opioids globally.  Despite the unacceptable human and economic costs of chronic pain, the way pain has been measured and managed has remained stagnant for decades. 

"There is an urgent need for innovation so we can better measure and monitor chronic pain patients to identify their treatment needs and facilitate improved care while they are at home," says Dr. Atul Prabhu, Lead of the Comprehensive Integrated Pain Program at the University Health Network.  "Manage My Pain is a great example of how technology can help close an important clinical gap."

The 24-month project is funded through the Ontario Centres of Excellence's Health Technology Fund program.  It is being led by Dr. Prabhu, along with his colleagues Dr. Hance Clarke and Dr. Anuj Bhatia, Medical Directors of Pain Services at the Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital respectively.  As part of the project, Manage My Pain will be deployed at the Centenary Pain Clinic based out of the Rouge Valley Centenary Hospital and at the Iroquois Falls Family Health Team based out of Anson General Hospital.  The results of the project will be compiled into a health economics report by the Centre for Excellence in Economic Analysis Research (CLEAR), based out of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital.

"We are fortunate to be working with pain management leaders for this project," says Tahir Janmohamed, CEO of ManagingLife. "Our objective is to show how Manage My Pain enables better care closer to home for the millions of chronic pain sufferers in Ontario and across Canada."

About ManagingLife

ManagingLife is a privately held Corporation based in Toronto, Canada that uses patient engagement and analytics to help chronic pain sufferers and practitioners learn more about their condition and better communicate with each other.  ManagingLife's app-based tool, "Manage My Pain" is used by over 25,000 chronic pain sufferers from over 130 countries to record their pain, function, and medication consumption. ManagingLife works with hospitals, clinical trials, and insurers to help healthcare professionals better measure, monitor, and manage their patients' pain and medications.

About the Health Technologies Fund (HTF)

The Health Technologies Fund (HTF) supports the development of made-in-Ontario health technologies by accelerating evaluation, procurement, adoption and diffusion in the Ontario health system. HTF is a program of the Government of Ontario's Office of the Chief Health Innovation Strategist (OCHIS), administered by the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE).  HTF fosters partnerships between publicly funded health service providers, patients, academia and industry to drive collaboration that improves patient outcomes, adds value to the health system and creates jobs in Ontario.

Contact:
Michelle Bashir
416-910-3950
[email protected]

SOURCE ManagingLife