Heilsueflandi snjallsímaforrit fyrir ungt fólk - verkefnislok
Fréttatilkynning verkefnisstjóra
Á heimsvísu er 2,1 milljarður manna yfir kjörþyngd og lífsstílstengdir sjúkdómar eru algengasta dánarorsök heimsins. Vandinn vex hratt og rík þörf er á nýjum úrræðum. Verkefnið hafði það að markmiði að þróa nýja lausn til að takast á við þennan vanda.
Heiti verkefnis: Heilsueflandi snjallsímaforrit fyrir ungt fólk
Verkefnisstjóri: Tryggvi Þorgeirsson, GoodlifeMe ehf.
Tegund styrks: Frumherjastyrkur
Styrkár: 2013-2014
Fjárhæð styrks: 14 millj. kr. alls
Tilvísunarnúmer Rannís: 131619-061
VERKEFNIÐ VAR STYRKT AF TÆKNIÞRÓUNARSJÓÐI.
GoodlifeMe hefur á verkefnistímanum þróað Sidekick™ vörulínuna sem hefur tvo meginþætti: 1) SidekickSaga™, heilsuleik fyrir snjallsíma þar notendur eru hvattir og aðstoðaðir við að breyta heilsuhegðun sinni; og 2) SidekickHealth™, vefgátt fyrir heilbrigðisstarfsfólk til að sinna sjúklingum sínum, hvetja þá og fá heilsutengdar upplýsingar um þá á hagkvæman og þægilegan hátt. Ennfremur hafa prófanir leitt í ljós að lausnin er vel til þess fallin að nýtast sem tól í virkri heilsueflingu innan fyrirtækja sem sækjast í auknum mæli eftir lausnum til að efla og viðhalda góðri heilsu starfsmanna.
Til að tryggja vísindalegan bakgrunn, áhrif og virkni Sidekick™ úrræðanna hefur þremur doktorsrannsóknum verið ýtt úr vör í samstarfi við samstarfsaðila við leiðandi háskóla og stofnanir á Íslandi, Svíþjóð og í Bandaríkjunum. Verkefnið hefur undanfarin tvö ár notið frumherjastyrks Tækniþróunarsjóðs sem hefur skipt sköpum fyrir árangurinn og gert GoodlifeMe kleift að taka mikilvæg skref við þróun og útfærslu á lausninni. Á þessu ári verður vörulína félagsins þróuð í endanlega fyrstu útgáfu og sölu- og markaðsstarf hefst af krafti í samstarfi við öfluga dreifingaraðila í Svíþjóð og Noregi. Vonir standa til þess að verkefnið leiði til umbyltingar í forvörnum og meðferð lífstílssjúkdóma og leggi grunn að stöndugu fyrirtæki á heilbrigðis- og upplýsingatæknisviði.
During the two-year project period the following tasks were performed:
- Conceptual foundations/background: review of scientific base, focus group studies, expert interviews, definition of requirements specifications.
- Branding, design, prototyping, alpha, beta and final development of the 1.0 versions of the Sidekick™ SAGA social health game for iOS and Android operating systems; as well as a web-based control module (Sidekick™ HEALTH) and back end/server support.
- Internal testing, and initial user testing amongst gymnasium students in Iceland and Sweden, and amongst corporate employees (for occupational healthcare).
- Preparation of large outcome studies, separately funded by external grants in Iceland and Sweden, comprising three separate PhD projects, with collaborators at Karolinska Institutet, Gothenburg University, the Swedish National Diabetes Register, the Harvard School of Public Health, the MIT Media Lab, the Icelandic Directorate of Health, Landspitali University Hospital, the Reykjalundur Health Clinic and the University of Iceland.
- Project presentations and key meetings (further described below): MIT case study; workshop at Icelandic Ministry of Welfare on future developments of Welfare Technology and invited participation in first Icelandic conference on the topic; invited presentation at Copenhagen seminar on the implementation of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations hosted by the Nordic Council of Ministers; interview with the Boston Business Journal.
- Market research and business development, including: 1) Exclusive distribution contract in final preparation with Avonova AB (key terms document signed), the second largest provider of occupational healthcare in Sweden; 2) similar collaboration in discussions with Avonova's Norwegian sister company Stamina; 3) request from Sony Mobile for a workshop in March on possible collaboration; 4) collaboration with AmanziTel on the possible pre-installment of Sidekick™ SAGA on mobile phones in Indonesia for the mobile operator Smartfren.
- Ongoing work on marketing-, communication- and launch strategy and preparations for a redesign on the current website (GoodlifeMe.com).
- Continuing funding efforts, leading to additional grants and investment from professional investors.
- Creation of an eight-person team of highly qualified, specialized and experienced full-time employees.
Yfirlit yfir birtar skýrslur, greinar í vísinda- og/eða tækniritum og annað efni þar sem verkefnið hefur verið kynnt:
A paper on a new approach to lifestyle interventions, co-written by GoodlifeMe CEO Tryggvi Thorgeirsson and Harvard professor and department chair Dr. Ichiro Kawachi, was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2013, providing an integral part of the theoretical backbone of the project.
Thorgeirsson T, Kawachi I. Behavioral Economics: Merging Psychology and Economics for Lifestyle Interventions. Am J Prev Med. 2013 Feb;44(2):185-9.
A case study was presented in 2014 by Tryggvi Thorgeirsson at a joint Harvard-MIT course on Data-Driven Healthcare, discussing the Sidekick™ solution and the proposed collaboration with NDR. Tryggvi will give this lecture and case study again in April of this year.
In connection with the MIT guest lecture in 2014, Tryggvi was interviewed briefly by the Boston Business Journal, discussing the project.
Tryggvi was invited to participate in a workshop in 2014 at the Icelandic Ministry of Welfare on future developments of Welfare Technology (“Velferðartækni”) in Iceland. Following this, GoodlifeMe employees Tryggvi and Erlendur Egilsson (clinical psychologist) were invited to participate in the first Icelandic conference on the topic, in Hof in Akureyri.
Erlendur was asked by the Icelandic Directorate of Health to give a talk in 2014 at a seminar in Copenhagen on the implementation of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, hosted by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The talk was on the use of behavioral economics and behavioral methods for the implementation of public health programs.
The project's principal investigator on the outcome research, Dr. Ragnar G. Bjarnason, received Landspitali-University Hospital´s honorary grant (“Hvatningastyrkur LSH”) to the amount of 5m ISK in November. The grant is intended to solidify the international research group associated with this project, through group meetings and collaboration, and to fund work on preparing a EU grant application for the academic part of the project (outcome research).
The project received Swedish grants for 2m SEK in November and December of 2014, for the proposed outcome studies with NDR during 2015-2016 and for adaptation of the app for those purposes. The former grant was awarded by VINNOVA under the call: Strategiska innovationsprogrammet för Folksjukdomar. The BIO-X program awarded the latter grant (http://www.bio-x.nu) in late December.
In addition to the presentations mentioned above, during the project period over 30 presentations have been given about the project and its theoretical background in various venues, including the Icelandic Medical Associations' annual conference in 2014 and 2015, the Landspitali University Hospital, the Icelandic Directorate of Health, the Icelandic Association of Family Physicians, the Medical Association of Gothenburg (Göteborgs Läkaresällskap) and others.