Ever since a car accident 20 years ago, local tech leader Tracey Welson-Rossman has suffered from chronic pain, with symptoms that varied, intensified and were sometimes hard to keep track of over time.
For the first three years, it was difficult for her to get a diagnosis, so she started logging her symptoms in a journal, something she continued for years. Even after she was diagnosed with chronic pain, Welson-Rossman found that she had to keep repeating information as she went to different specialists, started physical therapy and began seeing a massage therapist, chiropractor and an acupuncturist. At one point, her healthcare providers included 17 different people—all of whom she had to tell the same things, over and over.
Then, during a doctor’s appointment in 2009, she picked up her smartphone and had a realization. Like most people, Welson-Rossman has her phone with her at all times. “Wouldn’t it be great if I could track [my symptoms] on my phone?” she asked her neurologist.
In other words: There should be an app for this, she thought.
Welson-Rossman, chief marketing officer at IT consulting firm Chariot Solutions, knew she had what it would take to turn this idea into a full fledged business. She was one of the founding members of Philly Startup Leaders in 2007, and she launched her nonprofit TechGirlz in 2009 to help middle school girls cultivate an interest in tech careers. She researched her new idea for about six months, then shelved it to focus on growing TechGirlz for the next several years.
“It’s so freaky to be sick and to not get well. You feel so disempowered. You don’t understand what’s going on. It disrupts your entire life,” Fields says.
It wasn’t until hearing about early reports about Covid long-haulers that Welson-Rossman turned her attention back to the app. She knew a lot of people would need an easier way to track the widely varying symptoms of a still-mysterious virus. And, as it happens, just as the first reports about the condition were emerging last year, Welson-Rossman experienced a flare with her own chronic pain.
“My body was also saying, you really need to help people,” Welson-Rossman says.
Fast forward about a year and her app, Journal My Health, is now available for people to download in both the Android and Apple app stores. Since launching in May, the app has garnered 2,500 downloads and the business has been selected to participate in Philly Startup Leaders’ MVP Stage accelerator this fall.
Over 100 million Americans have a chronic illness
On the whole, approximately 133 million Americans struggled with chronic illness in 2019, a number the National Health Council projected to grow to an estimated 157 million in 2020—an increase driven in part by post-Covid conditions. Chronic health conditions are those that last one year or more and require on-going medical care to manage. Common medical issues include diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and chronic pain among others.
“For so many people around the country, [chronic health conditions are] almost like this hidden sort of secret,” Welson-Rossman says. “There’s a need for patients, especially in the chronic illness area, to have a way of tracking and keeping tabs on all this information.”
And that need has only increased with the persistent symptoms of Covid-19 Covid long-haulers, these patients who continue to feel unwell beyond the typical two to three week timeline of an infection. Studies found that anywhere between 10 and 78 percent of Covid patients have symptoms for longer than two to three months.
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Around the time these studies were coming out, Welson-Rossman had a bit of downtime at work due to the pandemic. Encouraged by Chariot Solutions CEO Mike Rappaport to work on new products, Welson-Rossman detailed her idea for an app to help people with chronic health conditions log their symptoms. Chariot Solutions designed the app, though the two businesses plan to operate as separate entities.
The app allows users to quickly rate how they’re feeling physically using a scale from very bad to good. They can also log any symptoms, medications, their sleep and their stress level. There’s also a section where users can write longer, more detailed notes about their symptoms. The app generates charts so patients can easily visualize the data and spot trends. All of the information collected in the app can be downloaded as a PDF, so it’s easy to share with doctors.
In addition to the data users log, the app integrates with biometric devices like Fitbits and Apple watches, which track metrics like heart rate and sleep. Welson-Rossman is currently working to integrate Journal My Health with other apps that collect data about things that may affect chronic health conditions, such as the weather app or menstrual cycle trackers.
Tracking for Covid long-haulers
Welson-Rossman worked with Dr. Marta Becker, an ENT specialist who sees Covid long-haulers and who now serves as the company’s chief medical officer. Becker points out that it’s important that the app suggests a wide variety of symptoms, including headaches, heart palpitations, blurry vision, memory problems, body aches and difficulty breathing, for patients to track because it allows doctors to see trends they may not have otherwise picked up on.
“I feel like a lot of applications that are about symptom tracking are very doctor focused. The doctor decides whether to say to the patient, oh I want you to track this and I want you to track that,” Becker says. “[Ours] is very patient focused.”
Though it’s designed to help people with many different chronic health conditions, the app can be particularly helpful for people with long Covid, who may be tracking a plethora of different symptoms, ranging from headaches and brain fog to extreme fatigue and prolonged loss of tastes and smell. Becker says that the app and the data it collects can help doctors better understand how the disease presents in people.
“For so many people around the country, [chronic health conditions are] almost like this hidden sort of secret,” Welson-Rossman says. “There’s a need for patients, especially in the chronic illness area, to have a way of tracking and keeping tabs on all this information.”
“Adding data to understand the patient’s experience, streamlining communication, streamlining credibility and basically teaching physicians about the disease are all things that journaling can do in long Covid patients,” Becker says. “The thing about long Covid is that there’s not a lot known about it. We know more and more every day, but we’re still trying to get a handle on it, and a full understanding of what causes it.”
For Deborah Fields, one of the beta testers for the app, using Journal My Health makes it easy to keep all the data about her long-Covid condition in a central place, which has helped her in learning to live with her illness.
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“I haven’t fully recovered, but I’ve recovered a lot of my capabilities. So I think the app for me was sort of about improving what I could,” she says. “It improved the way I was journaling and reflecting on how I felt every day.” (Fields is a major advocate for integrating the app with a menstrual cycle tracker, since she noticed her own symptoms tended to worsen when she was on her period.)
Fields, who met Welson-Rossman when she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, came to start using the app after she posted on Facebook about her experience with long-Covid and her eventual diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, a condition that affects blood flow. After seeing the post, Welson-Rossman immediately reached out to share her experiences with a chronic health condition and to invite Fields to be a beta-tester. Prior to using the app, Fields was keeping notes about her condition in her iPhone’s notes app.
“It’s so freaky to be sick and to not get well. You feel so disempowered. You don’t understand what’s going on. It disrupts your entire life,” Fields says. “To have someone reach out compassionately and to be involved in developing this tool really just gives us some power over this condition.”
The app is currently available to download for free in the Apple app store and in the Google play store. The business is currently investor-supported and is not yet profitable, as Welson-Rossman is still figuring out what the company’s business model will look like. She says that someday, users may pay for additional features, but for now she just wants to see whether people are using the app.
Journal My Health was recently selected to participate in Philly Startup Leaders MVP-stage accelerator, Founded in Philly, this fall. The 12-week program will give Welson-Rossman the opportunity to refine the company’s business model and meet with investors.
Halfway through the three-month program, all the startups will participate in a lightning pitch night where investors and PSL board and community members will listen to 5 minute pitches from the companies and offer feedback.
“I’m hoping that Journal My Health can play a part in helping patients understand what’s happening and take a little bit more control,” Welson-Rossman says.
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Header photo courtesy of Journal My Health