NAMS Launches Menopause Mobile App at Annual Conference

The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) is set to launch a new mobile app designed to help clinicians and patients manage menopausal symptoms and assess risk factors, according to a press release.

The new app, called MenoPro, has two modes — one for health care providers and one for patients. It employs an algorithm as a clinical decision-support tool to help clinicians determine “which patients are candidates for pharmacologic treatment of menopausal symptoms, understand what the treatment options are, and gain experience deciding among the options,” JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, and colleagues wrote in the journal Menopause.

MenoPro offers access to NAMS resources as well as an internal cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score calculator. Summaries of the decision-making process and information pages or handouts can also be emailed to patients via the app, according to the release.

The app and algorithm also provide discussion of treatment options for hot flashes, night sweats and genitourinary symptoms like vaginal dryness or painful intercourse. Furthermore, patients and providers can find information on lifestyle modifications, doses and formulations of various treatments, and contraindications to therapy.

“This new app represents a major step forward for both clinicians and patients looking to make more informed health care decisions,” Manson, who is scientific program chair of NAMS and lead author of the editorial published in Menopause, said in the release.

Co-author of the Menopause article and executive director of NAMS Margery Gass, MD, also praised the app.

“One of the most difficult and controversial health care decisions most women face during midlife is whether or not to use prescription medications for menopausal symptom management,” she said in the release.

“Given the expanded array of treatment options and contradictory information available, many women feel overwhelmed. But this new app is designed to streamline the decision-making process and encourages patients to communicate and work together with their clinicians to identify a personalized treatment path,” Dr. Gass added.

The society will demonstrate the app, which will be available for iPhone and iPad, at the NAMS 2014 Annual Meeting, which starts on Oct. 15, and will be released in late October, pending approval from Apple.

Reference

1. Manson JE et al. Menopause. 2014;doi:10.1097/GME.0000000000000373.