Stefanie, herself affected by thyroid disease, talks from her own experience about the difficulties that patients face. She talks about the lack of information, the often inadequate medical care and the frustration that many sufferers experience when they are not taken seriously.
With ThyroPal, Stefanie wants to create a trustworthy source of information that helps patients understand their blood values and medication and facilitates communication with their doctors.
Thyroid disorders are more widespread than you might think. In Germany, an estimated 10 million people are affected. The most common disease, says Stefanie, is Hashimoto's thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own thyroid tissue.
A healthy thyroid gland is important as it produces hormones that are essential for the body's overall metabolism. With an underactive thyroid, the thyroid gland produces too few hormones, which can lead to symptoms such as tiredness, weight gain, sensitivity to cold and difficulty concentrating.
Although thyroid diseases are often easily treatable, many patients experience difficulties with medical care.
Patients are often not sufficiently informed about their illness. They do not know what the diagnosis means, what treatment options are available and what impact the disease can have on their everyday lives.
Many doctors, it seems, do not take patients' complaints seriously and therefore do not treat them adequately. Often, only a single blood value is checked, which is not meaningful enough.
Patients often feel left alone and frustrated when they are not taken seriously. They then often seek help in online forums and Facebook groups, where they can come across unverified information and dangerous advice.
ThyroPal is designed to help patients better manage their disease and improve communication with their doctors. The app has two main objectives:
ThyroPal is designed to provide patients with understandable information about thyroid diseases, blood values, medication and treatment options. The app is intended to serve as an alternative to unverified information in online forums.
ThyroPal is designed to help patients track and analyze their blood values and medications. The app is designed to create a clear PDF report that patients can present to their doctors to facilitate communication and enable informed decisions.
ThyroPal's MVP (Minimum Viable Product) will initially focus on the core functions:
Track blood values and medication: Users can record their blood values and medication intake in the app.
Rule-based interpretation: The app analyzes the entered data based on medical guidelines and creates a report with specific recommendations for action.
PDF report for doctors: The findings report can be downloaded as a PDF and printed out to present to the doctor.
In addition to the technical development, acceptance of ThyroPal by doctors is a major challenge. Stefanie plans to enter into dialog with doctors and convince them of the benefits of the app. User interviews and feedback from doctors should help to continuously improve the app and adapt it to the needs of users.
Stefanie sees ThyroPal as having the potential to be more than just an app. She would like to develop the app further in the long term and integrate functions that help patients to positively influence their lifestyle and thus reduce the risk of further autoimmune diseases. Stefanie also wants to make medical topics more accessible and empower patients to make informed decisions about their health.
ThyroPal is a promising no-code project with great impact potential. The app can help thyroid patients to better manage their disease and improve communication with their doctors.
After this recording, our developers started to implement ThyroPal's MVP. We are excited to see where the journey will take us!
Tool of the week - Figma: https://www.visualmakers.de/tool/figma
Stefanie's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefaniekruse/
