RheumaConnect app for iPhone and iPad

The application RheumaConnect has been developed by MSD Belgium and is intended to help patients suffering from rheumatic diseases (RA rheumatoide arthritis, polyarthritis, SA ankylosing spondylitis, Bechterew, axial spondyloarthritis, PsA psoriatic arthritis). Besides a number of interesting tools for the patient (like consultations / medication reminders, links to patient organizations, where they can find useful, and validated info regarding their disease etc.), it can be used to provide the doctor with accurate and structured feedback about the evolution of the disease and its impact on the quality of life of the patient. The app is not intended to replace doctor visits.

The app has the following objectives and functionalities.
• The patient can fill a weekly questionnaire (2 questions).
• The patient can fill a monthly questionnaire with feedback on the impact of the disease on the patient’s quality of life.
• The patient can send this feedback as a report by email to the physician/rheumatologist.
• The patient can receive reminders for medication intake.
• The app provides the patients with links to patient organizations, where they can find useful and validated information regarding the disease.



Privacy disclaimer

MSD Belgium BVBA/SPRL is the Belgian subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA, a leading research-based pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a wide range of innovative pharmaceutical products, in order to improve the life of patients in Belgium and around the world.

MSD does its utmost to protect the data in the app to guarantee the privacy of the patient. Data are encrypted on the mobile device and can be accessed only by using the app. The patient will be requested to choose a 4 digit PIN code when installing the app. MSD will not have access to the user data and personal information in the app, nor the app shares data with third parties. The patient can, at his own discretion, send information from the app to the attending physician (or nurse), via email, however, the patient should consider carefully what personal information to provide or what documents to share through a personal mail account. It is recommended to take existing security parameters of e-mail transmission into account, including but not limited to the integrity of the used communication network. The physician receiving the information is responsible for the data privacy and protection.

For additional information about privacy and data protection at MSD, please go to this website: http://www.msd-belgium.be/english/about/how-we-operate/pages/privacy.aspx.

MSD will make use of Google Analytics for statistics on the usage of the application to improve the functionality of the system. No personally identifiable information is used for these statistics, MSD will only have access to aggregated data.

RHEU-1165207-0000 Date of last revision: 01/2016