Ideas on health, from spin-off Topping, starts up health 2.0 projects
The projects establish collaborative links between patients’ associations and doctors. An accredited medical website is the channel used to communicate with patients.
BY BIOCAT
30% of all Spanish patients look for information on their conditions online and, although there is a lot of informational noise, “with a little common sense we can find serious, reliable information online that can help us improve our quality of life,” explains Armando Ruiz, CEO of Topping, a spin-off located at the UAB Research Park (PRUAB) that specializes in developing clinical research projects, raising awareness of scientific issues and health communications for companies and institutions.
These routines, derived from the proliferation of new technology, have led to the creation of medicine 2.0 and the so-called e-patients, stakeholders who believe in a new way of understanding medicine, making it a participative and translational field where both doctors and patients have a lot to say.
The project Ideas on health (Ideas en salud), developed by Topping and funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), has been created with the aim of seeking out new collaboration methods for doctors, researchers and e-patients to continue moving forward in generating knowledge and implementing the results of research related to asthma and Chronic Pulmonary Obstruction Disease (COPD), cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, rare and skin diseases. This information is made available to the general public on their website http://ideasensalud.com/ (with news, interviews, videos and more). It is a medical website accredited by the Barcelona Medical Association (COMB).
In addition to this work to raise awareness, Ideas on health also carries out its own collaborative research projects. Currently, according to Armando Ruiz, they are working on a project on COPD and another on food allergies and intolerance. These projects are carried out in conjunction with the Spanish Association of COPD Patients and Families (ASOCEPOC) and the Spanish Association of Latex and Food Allergies (AEPNAA).
In order to attract new funding from companies and individuals, Ideas on health receives support from the Ministry of Science and Innovation’s new Taracea platform.