PatientsLikeMe launches “24 Days of Giving” to encourage sharing of health data for good

Napkin Notes Dad Garth Callaghan Joins Campaign Calling on People
to Donate Health Data Starting on Giving Tuesday

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (November 17, 2014) – On December 2, PatientsLikeMe will launch a new campaign that will extend through the month and ask people to rethink their giving this year. PatientsLikeMe is calling on patients who are living with a chronic condition to donate their health data after donating to their favorite non-profit on Giving Tuesday.

The December campaign, officially branded “24 Days of Giving,” asks patients to simply share their health data for good. To do so, they can create a profile on PatientsLikeMe and start tracking their symptoms, treatments and quality of life. By sharing this data on the site, patients not only help themselves, but help others who can learn from their experiences, and advance research. “Our members have learned how to live better day-to-day and have contributed significantly to medical research,” said Michael Evers, PatientsLikeMe’s Executive Vice President of Marketing and Patient Advocacy. “We hope more will consider sharing their health data for their own, and the greater, good.”

At PatientsLikeMe, health data includes information about a disease or condition—how people live with it, what their doctors are doing to treat it, and what it’s like to navigate their health journey. The data are de-identified and shared with partners to help bring the patient voice to medical research, develop better clinical trials, and create new products and services that are more in tune with what patients experience and need.

Garth Callaghan, kidney cancer fighter and author of Napkin Notes, understands the importance of data for good in furthering clinical research and is an active PatientsLikeMe member. Garth has been diagnosed with cancer four times and may not live long enough to watch his daughter Emma graduate from high school. Rather than dwell on his diagnosis, Garth takes each day as a gift and a chance to connect with those he loves. He has fulfilled a promise he made to write 826 napkin notes so that Emma will have one for every day until she graduates high school. Garth uses PatientsLikeMe to share his data in the hope that others living with cancer can learn from his experience and help fight their own battles better.

“I keep my promise to Emma by sharing wisdom through my napkin notes, and I share my cancer stories online through PatientsLikeMe,” said Garth. “When I donate my data to an organization that can aggregate it and see a pattern or meaning, I’m not just helping myself, I’m helping all of the other people who are living with cancer, and their doctors.”

The “24 Days of Giving” campaign will be active across PatientsLikeMe’s Twitter and Facebook social media channels through December (#24DaysofGiving). Anyone can join PatientsLikeMe and share their experiences to help others while helping themselves. To learn more, go to www.patientslikeme.com.

About PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe® is a patient network that improves lives and a real-time research platform that advances medicine. Through the network, patients connect with others who have the same disease or condition and track and share their own experiences. In the process, they generate data about the real-world nature of disease that help researchers, pharmaceutical companies, regulators, providers, and nonprofits develop more effective products, services and care. With more than 300,000 members, PatientsLikeMe is a trusted source for real-world disease information and a clinically robust resource that has published more than 50 peer-reviewed research studies. Visit us at www.patientslikeme.com or follow us via our blog, Twitter or Facebook.

Contacts
Margot Carlson Delogne
PatientsLikeMe
(781) 492-1039
mcdelogne@patientslikeme.com

Rachel St. Martin
Edelman
(646) 221-6933
Rachel.St.Martin@edelman.com

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