Aim
Thanks to developments in HIV treatment and prevention, only around 300 people are diagnosed with HIV in San Francisco per year. But for those 300, especially those within the 18-29 age range, an HIV diagnosis brings feelings of confusion, uncertainty, loneliness, and fear for the future. HIV can be an isolating condition, and a critical aspect for newly diagnosed youth is to feel like part of the community while also maintaining personal privacy.
SOM Tech partnered with the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) Assistant Professor Dr. Parya Saberi to develop WYZ (pronounced “Wise”), a mobile health app that:
- Helps patients track and remember to take their medications,
- Simplifies communication between providers and patients, and
- Builds a community to help reduce the stigma of HIV.
SOM Tech worked with Dr. Saberi and the patient community to develop tools that provide a balance between anonymity and community for WYZ users, as well as resources and reminders to help patients feel in control.
Approach
When Dr. Saberi first approached SOM Tech, she needed help turning her ideas into an application that could be prototyped. SOM Tech’s tiered design and development approach gave Saberi’s team a cost-effective way to do exactly that. Each phase of the project iteratively worked to expand ideas into concrete features and actual code over the project’s duration. SOM Tech’s human-centered design workshops with youth living with HIV helped the team refine and prioritize the WYZ app’s most useful features, including:
- Medication reminders
- Adherence and refill tracking
- Lab result access
- Healthcare team access
- Community resources identification
- Social networking functions
SOM Tech’s expertise allowed Dr. Saberi to turn innovative ideas and formative research into an effective, functional app. Originally built as an iOS mobile application to fit the target group’s user preferences, with a REDCap backend selected for its security and lack of licensing costs. WYZ has been field tested with users scoring it highly on its usability and the likelihood of recommending the app to others.
Partners
Dr. Parya Saberi (CAPS), UCSF Enterprise IT— Academic Research Systems (ARS)
CAPS is one of the world’s largest research centers dedicated to social, behavioral, and policy science approaches to HIV. Dr. Saberi develops technology-based strategies to improve antiretroviral adherence and engagement in HIV care for youth living with HIV.
ARS provides an integrated repository of clinical and life sciences data and a centralized, secure, professionally managed infrastructure for data storage and management.
Solutions
SOM Tech was able to partner with Dr. Saberi across the project’s life cycle. SOM Tech was able to keep costs lower by partnering with external partners including outsourcing some of the iOS and Android design and build and leveraging a large number of internal tools like REDCap and Salesforce.
More Information
This project received funding from the NIH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), allowing SOM Tech to develop WYZ even further. Today, WYZ offers additional community and resource features, an upgraded back-end database and a new Android version.
Today WYZ is part of a five-year R34 study and awaiting additional funding from NIMH.
