| Company name: | ChangeXtra | Contact name & Job Title | Claire Mann, Director |
| Project title: | Visualisation for peri-menopause self-care | Month/year | June 2023 |
| Style of case study: | Written | Account Manager | Caroline Sykes |
| Case study owner/ writer/producer | Sam Burbage | Third party assigned? |
The background to the case study / Storyboarding
ChangeXtra is on a mission to get people talking about the Menopause. They offer services directly to women and to businesses seeking to empower women through positive change.
Currently the company provides one-to-one appointments to discuss individual menopause journeys and provide mentoring support. In addition, ChangeXtra is creating an online community and a forum which is a safe space where women can share their experiences and journey.
Future aims of ChangeXtra it via their health-tracking approach and App (Pausetrack). Currently the App enables women to keep a note of how they are feeling, recording any changes in habits (medicine, changes in diet) and associated impact. Through the integration of AI, the App aims to provide individualised care pathways for women dependent up on symptoms and determine any links of mood with certain habits.
The challenge / trigger event / the service, product or project in question
It is estimated that 13million women in the UK are either peri- of post menopausal with symptoms lasting up to 15 years. Over 60% of women experience symptoms with 1 in 4 women experience severe debilitating symptoms. These women and supporter network (family and employees) are the target market for ChangeXtra products
Pausetrack is a health tracking app for women in peri-menopause. Currently the app can track symptoms and provide basic visual feedback on a calendar. This innovative project is to develop version 2 of the app which can track interventions and provide enhanced visualisations to support self-care. The current app is free but the second version will be a subscription model generating income for the business.
The solution
Through the INSTILS project, ChangeXtra met with an Innovation Advisor, who worked with them to identify the best way to develop their app into its next phase and operate a subscription model.
The company needed an App development company, which were familiar with both ios and android, and using Flutter and Firebase. with specific expertise in analytics and visualisations for reporting.
The Innovation Advisor worked with ChangeXtra to find them a company which best suited their needs. Such a company was found, and the two organisations began to work together and implement ChangeXtra’s plans.
The results / evaluation
Since working with their new software developer, ChangeXtra have managed to update their app in Flutter and it is available via the app store or google play for any apple or android device. It employs basic data analytics and visualisations to provide the user with 1:1 feedback and reporting on their own symptoms. Future versions of the app will provide 1:many feedback using AI analytics on big data. The back end stores data in a time series database for anonymised big data analytics.
Pausetrack has the potential to fill the gap for big data about peri-menopause symptoms and interventions. Using this data ChangeXtra has the potential to educate and support women to self care, to support the development of better interventions for women, to enhance clinical practice and to inform policymaking. This will be pushed forward by the potential for new technologies including AI to generate and understand big data.
Future versions of Pausetrack will employ AI to seek patterns in big data and represent this to women visually for ease of understanding. AI will be able to compare users with similar characteristics to personalise intervention recommendations.
With big data and AI analytics Pausetrack can act as a clinical trial database for interventions leading to the potential for large scale fast realist research. This will move ChangeXtra into the B2B data market by helping to inform the menopause B2C market providers about what works for women.
Pausetrack also has potential through large scale research to inform policymaking and clinical practice.
Medilink Midlands’s role/Quote from the company“Medilink Midlands and the INSTILS support we received were invaluable to us. Without their support, we couldn’t have got our app upgraded and improved to the same degree, within the same timeframe. Women often visit the GP multiple times seeking help for symptoms of peri-menopause. 2/3 women attending the GP with symptoms will be offered anti-depressants. Anti-depressant use is highest in middle aged women and increasing. Health tracking can help to educate women and provide evidence for GP appointments. This can lead to reduction in both appointments and anti-depressant prescribing saving NHS time and costs.” Claire Mann, CEO, ChangeXtra
Medilink Midlands’s role/Quote from the Advisor
“By helping ChangeXtra to develop their application, Medilink Midlands is helping them to address a truly global issue. 13 million women in the UK are in peri or full menopause; globally 1 billion women by 2050. 1 in 4 have symptoms making a debilitating impact on their life, so there are 3-4 million women in the UK peri-menopause seeking support for debilitating symptoms. The UK health system has no means to record data tagged as peri-menopause so there is limited large scale data or research evidence about symptoms and interventions for peri-menopause. ChangeXtra’s technology fulfils a very prevalent market need, and we were pleased to help them on their innovation journey.” Caroline Sykes, Innovation Adviser