Dr. Alexa - Digital Cancer Therapy Assistant

Submission Template

For the processing of the use cases within the DEUTSCHLAND 4.0 project a common submission template is available. This template will help you to structure your ideas and approaches and to find answers to all relevant questions.

SUBMISSION TEMPLATE (English version)

In addition to this submission template, you will find specific requirements and guiding questions for your Use Case in the "Guiding Questions" tab, which you should consider when preparing your submission.

You can also complement your submission with prototypes, pitch decks, images and video material, higher-level concepts or specific application-related instruments - simply submit these documents together with the submission template via our platform.

The aim is to ensure that solutions within the overall project cover a broad spectrum through this approach: from concrete digital product ideas to higher-level visions

Key Questions

• How can the Alexa system be optimized and extended to offer a much more comprehensive help especially to patients with chronic diseases? - the focus here would be on cancer diseases with a long course or chronification.
• Can the system be individualized, e.g. to allow for a certain degree of disease monitoring in addition to simple "calendar functions" (reminders during therapy, scheduling of follow-up examinations, etc.)? This would require the system to continuously implement individual disease data automatically, e.g. by networking with the practitioner, and to use self-learning algorithms to recognize disease progression or recurrence at an early stage, for example, and to alert the patient if necessary. This would have decisive advantages for those affected, since it would be possible to optimize early treatment strategies.
• Can emergency message management be integrated in this context? For early detection of signals indicating an emergency in the course of therapy.
• Can Alexa offer individualized regular exercises and motivation if needed, e.g. exercise / physiotherapy exercises e.g. breathing exercises for lung cancer / relaxation exercises to reduce stress / or tips on side effect management (for certain types of NW like fatigue, nausea, diarrhea etc.)?

Criteria & specifications

Promising approaches:

• The further development of the Alexa skills, for example, in the direction of "Adherence Companion": Alexa as "Adherence-Companion" / Therapy-loyal companion and "Health Promotion Coach”
• Alexa could help out with a reminder function during therapy with oral cancer drugs, "accompanies" the patient in everyday life and helps him with questions.
• Alexa could provide comprehensive information, refer patients to support services and actively ask questions to inquire about specific symptoms.
• On this basis, Alexa would recognize tendencies and could react, for example by offering motivating exercises (movement management).
• The language assistant could regularly play and repeat the behavioral instructions individually entered by the doctor (the doctor is not to be replaced by this, but Alexa is to take a mediating position in both directions).

Criteria to be observed:

• Drug Advertising Act (HWG)
• Pharmacovigilance monitoring necessary for the documentation of patient data/diaries such as side effects etc.
• Data protection (patient health data)
• Technical possibilities, e.g. in case of active symptom monitoring by Alexa: possibility of data transmission/linking with treating physician? Artificial intelligence to detect deterioration of symptoms?

Approaches that have already been pursued or are being excluded

Speech recognition with Alexa for the diagnosis of certain diseases, e.g. dementia or respiratory diseases, is from a medical point of view rather irrelevant for oncological diseases

In addition, Takeda Oncology has developed the first Alexa multiple myeloma skill in 2019 in collaboration with patient organizations and myeloma experts. The skill can explain technical terms and answer central questions about multiple myeloma, find self-help groups close to the user and playfully test and impart knowledge with a quiz question of the week. The goal is to give patients access to verified information - in a simple way via speech, so that they can enter into physicians’ discussions better informed and more competently and can participate in individual treatment planning.

However, in the current functionality of the Alexa system, the stored information only represents a data pool, which is, however, in a certain way "rigid" and requires a certain amount of effort for regular updates.

The use of the skill by the myeloma patient community is clear so far - barriers identified in our Advisory Boards include technical hurdles and basic privacy concerns about speech assistants, so these points should be explicitly considered in your approaches to solving the problem.