Apps

Pain assessment app partners with InterSystems

PainChek, a smartphone-based pain assessment and monitoring application, has partnered with InterSystems to utilise InterSystems IRIS for Health™ to integrate with electronic medical record systems.

One of the aims of combining the companies’ platforms is to facilitate a global market entry for the pain assessment app, including integration with the healthcare information system, TrakCare.

The app itself, using a camera on a smart device, uses facial recognition technology to help automate a pain assessment process. It is used by nurses and carers to conduct a pain assessment, which the company says can be completed “in around two minutes”. The company’s tech is now used in over 1,300 aged care facilities, and with this partnership aims to move into hospitals.

As a benefit, the company notes: “Among pain management improvements to increase the quality of care for residents, an 18-month case study showed a 20 percent reduction in the use of benzodiazepines and antipsychotic medications.”

Through the partnership the app has been developed to support message formats to HL7® and FHIR®, and can be integrated in the cloud.

“Partnering with a global leader like InterSystems accelerates our entry into new markets like the hospital sector,” said Philip Daffas, CEO, PainChek. “We know from experience in aged care how important it is to connect to EMR systems. InterSystems IRIS for Health makes that easy and scales up our capacity to connect into hospitals and, in the future, other sectors like home care that would also benefit from easy to use and reliable pain assessment.”

PainChek added that the app “has regulatory clearance as a medical device in Australia, the UK, Europe, Singapore, Canada and New Zealand. An application to the U.S. FDA is currently in progress.”