With National Health IT Week behind us, I wanted to let readers of the HIMSS Blog know of another post we received from Naveen Rao, health IT manager for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The post appeared this week on the LIVESTRONG blog and offers updates on what the Foundation is doing around health IT.

I’ll let you read his post for the details, but basically, he described two tools for cancer patients:

The LIVESTRONG Cancer Guide and Tracker App – A way for people to manage their symptoms, medications, appointments and other information, as well as access related LIVESTRONG support, all with a few taps of an iPad.

LIVESTRONG Survivorship Care Plan – A customized resource for survivors based on diagnosis, surgical and treatment history. The tool covers over a dozen types of cancer that provides them with a roadmap of side effects or possible complications of treatment or surgery, typical follow-up care, and other useful information.

I have not used either tool, but as a cancer survivor several times over, I am glad to see the app and care plan available for anyone fighting this disease and looking for better ways to manage data and information.  These tools also show how integrated and connected we are and must be with health IT, since technology also helping the patient is really what our overall cause is about, as we look for ways to make care better and less costly.

I would like to hear from other cancer survivors about their use and interaction with health IT…what have you done and how has it helped you?