Custom solutions for those battling breast cancer are being used now by Samsung Electronics with the Galaxy Tab device through a pilot program at the Athens Regional Health System Breast Health Center in Georgia.
It’s called the MyJourney Compass, which was created by the Georgia Institute of Technology Enterprise Innovation Institute, and it uses the Breezie’s interface supported by Samsung’s KNOX security platform.
The MyJourney Compass pilot makes customized content from the American Cancer Society available for patients and runs on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.
In an interview with Dr. David Rhew, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Healthcare and Fitness for Samsung, he shared about the new endeavor and some of the details.
The collaboration between Samsung, the American Cancer Society, Breezie and the Georgia Institute of Technology Enterprise Innovation Institute appears to be a complex partnership for this project. How was that put together?
We are really looking at how people are using different platforms. For example, when it comes to seniors, only about 27 percent of them will use a tablet. We realized that the user experience needs to be changed. There was a chance for us to look back at existing platforms that we had on the Samsung side, KNOX.
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We realized that we could give the most relevant content to an individual. We thought about how this could be important for cancer patients. Cancer patients are on a journey. They start of with a diagnosis, and there are a lot of questions that they have. Then it moves to having a surgery planned, and then there is the next stage of treatment – chemotherapy or radiation.
The analogy that we thought of is similar to the book “What to Expecting When You’re Expecting.” No one really reads that cover to cover. You read it at week 16 and read about what’s going on during that period of the pregnancy. We find that content is most relevant when it has to do with the exact state of a process you’re in. This is customizing the relevant content to the individual, that’s what this platform with the American Cancer Society is doing with us.
We are all trying to leverage our different, unique capabilities for this project.
Is there an opportunity to market this platform for those who don’t use Samsung devices, simply as an application?
Someone could always access their information on any device, Samsung or not. That’s something the American Cancer Society wants to enable. What we are able to do, having this unique platform, is allow people to pull the right information at the right time. This allows us to create a more personalized, customized experience for people that will lead to better outcomes. That’s the purpose of this pilot.
Why is the focus centered on breast cancer in particular?
It was simply because when we asked the American Cancer Society where was the area that stood out the most – they selected that. It’s clearly a high-impact condition. We thought this was a good starting point, but it certainly isn’t the only thing we can address.
What’s the trajectory for this project and what comes next after the pilot?
The pilot is about putting together the pieces that will allow us to deploy this this year. Our goal is to deploy it, validate it, and by the middle of this year have early findings that we can share. That said, what we learn from the pilot, in terms of user experience, we might make adjustments before we go to the next stage.
A lot of companies, Google, Apple, IBM are leaning into healthcare currently. Is this the start of a big initiative for Samsung to jump in?
Absolutely. We have a very strong commitment to healthcare. Samsung does have a medical center in Korea. We have a commitment to not only provide technology but to actually deliver healthcare. We are looking to see how we can take some of these technologies that we already have developed and see how they can be better applicable to U.S. healthcare. We think the best way to improve patient outcomes is to get people better engaged in their health.
Technology is a great vehicle for us to do that. It’s things people use and touch everyday. We can provide, analyze information and get it to providers, and we think we have a unique and important responsibility to do so.
Photo: Flickr user Janitors
