Effective pain management is critical for excellent care and surgical outcomes, but it is essential that pain medications are prescribed and taken responsibly. To address the global opioid addiction crisis, Michigan Medicine’s General Surgery team designed a research study to understand how people use over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription opioid pain medications. They approached Symphonize to develop Pain Pilot, a mobile app enabling post-operative patients to report medication use and allowing researchers to analyze its effects on pain management.

Pain Pilot encourages patients to manage pain primarily with OTC medications, using opioids minimally and discontinuing them as soon as possible. The app specifies the patient's medication protocol, provides information on safe medication use, and prominently features OTCs as scheduled options while listing opioids as “as needed.” Patients can easily log their medication intake and pain scores, helping researchers track pain management outcomes.

The app includes educational content to encourage responsible medication use and participation in the study. It monitors trends in pain scores and prompts patients to take appropriate actions, such as calling their doctor for high pain scores or safely disposing of opioids for low pain scores. The app also provides detailed information about each medication, including usage instructions, benefits, risks, side effects, and overdose protocols.

Symphonize’s role included discovering application needs with Michigan Medicine, writing user stories, designing workflows and mockups, and engineering the app with mobile development, cloud infrastructure, and HIPAA compliance.  

Based on Pain Pilot's early success, Michigan Medicine plans to collaborate with Symphonize on MedGuider, a suite of apps focused on excellence in care and optimal patient outcomes.

Based on early success with Pain Pilot, Michigan Medicine has expanded its long-term vision to include working with Symphonize to create an entire suite of apps (known as MedGuider) centered on excellence in care and the best possible outcomes for patients.

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