Medtronic Unveils Mobile App for Spinal Cord Stimulation Therapy Progress

Medtronic plc has developed a new mobile app and web portal—CareGuidePro—that serves as a virtual guide for patients during their spinal cord stimulation therapy journey.

“CareGuidePro is Medtronic’s first patient-centric digital health platform created for spinal cord stimulation patients, intended as a seamless solution that will naturally integrate into the care provider’s workflow,” said Dave Anderson, president of the Neuromodulation business, which is part of the Neuroscience Portfolio at Medtronic. “We believe this digital health platform will facilitate a more informative and engaging patient experience that will translate into better physician-patient dialogue, potentially contributing to better therapy management.”

The patient’s care team, including physicians and Medtronic, may also use the CareGuidePro platform to help manage and support the patient’s experience with spinal cord stimulation. Patients also have the ability to record their pain relief and other feedback directly into the app, providing detailed Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) to ensure timely, essential information is recorded and accessible even outside of in-person office visits. 

“Pain management is a complex and intensely personal experience for individual patients. Every patient is a singular case. The ability to monitor patients more closely, to receive data and feedback more quickly, means we can adjust and adapt therapies more efficiently and effectively when needed,” said Krishnan Chakravarthy, M.D., Ph.D., a San Diego-based interventional pain management physician and first physician to use the technology with patients. “This is an important step forward for the field of neuromodulation and patient care.”

CareGuidePro features include:

• Caregiver access for patients less familiar or able to manage the app, enabling easy access to essential information
• Procedure-specific FAQs and task lists/reminders
• Standardized and Custom Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) surveys
• Secure sharing of PROs to keep entire care team informed
• Secure, encrypted two-way communication and file-sharing

“Knowledge is power, and digital health solutions like CareGuidePro give patients the tools they need to ask the right questions and make informed care decisions, which we know can lead to better long-term outcomes,” said Nandan Lad, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery at Duke University and co-founder of Higgs Boson Health. “By providing patients with the right information at the right time, we also aim to reduce inefficiencies and free up care teams to focus on providing outstanding care.”
 
Medtronic is currently enrolling patients for the app’s limited commercial release, with a full United States release expected in late summer. CareGuidePro is available on iOS and Android devices.