Screenshot/Google Play

Last year, we introduced you to a new cell phone app that every sickle cell warrior should download -- the VOICE Crisis Alert App. While that app is designed to empower kids and adults in the general public who are living with sickle cell disease to record and communicate pain events easily, a new app developed by Children's National is concentrating more on minimizing hospital readmission rates for adolescents with SCD. 

With a focus on the clinical research angle, rather than the consumer market, the PROMIS for Pain Management App -- available on Android and iPhone -- requires a PIN to log in to the system, and as of now, PINs are only available to patients who are involved in clinical trials with Children's National. To encourage participants to regularly use the app the way that it is intended, a rewards system offering things such as badges and gift cards has been put into place.

Using the National Institute of Health's Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (that's where the name "PROMIS" comes from), the initial goal of this app is to track weekly pain, along with patients' reaction to /coping with the pain. According to Children's National, "The next step is to develop an alert system (alerts, e-mails, text messages) and interventions to increase patient/provider engagement, to improve outpatient pain management, and to decrease hospital readmission. The long-term goal ... is to improve outpatient monitoring and pain management and decrease readmission rates in SCD patients."