Trusted Health Information, Now Built Into Soothe Note
Soothe Note now brings trusted medication and health education from the National Library of Medicine, FDA, and National Cancer Institute directly into the app, while keeping personal health information private.
Cancer care comes with a lot of unfamiliar information. Medication names, symptoms, medical terminology, shortages, recalls, and treatment questions can quickly become overwhelming.
Soothe Note now brings trusted health education and medication information directly into the app using resources from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and National Cancer Institute.
The goal is simple: make reliable information easier to find without trying to replace a patient's healthcare team.
Smarter medication entry
When adding a medication, Soothe Note can now suggest medication names, common forms, and available strengths as you type.
The information comes from RxTerms, a medication resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Around 1,650 medications are packaged directly inside Soothe Note. That means medication suggestions are fast, work offline, and do not require sending what someone types to an outside service.
Soothe Note can also recognize several common brand names. For example, searching for Zofran can help identify ondansetron.
Helping identify the right medication
When someone chooses to learn more about a medication, Soothe Note can use RxNav and RxNorm from the National Library of Medicine to identify the medication and its active ingredient.
This helps Soothe Note handle things such as common misspellings and connections between brand and generic medication names.
For example, a brand-name medication can be connected with its generic ingredient so the appropriate educational resources can be found.
Plain-language medication information
Soothe Note also connects users with MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine's consumer health resource.
For medications, MedlinePlus can provide understandable information about what a medication is used for and general information about taking it.
Rather than creating our own medical explanations, Soothe Note connects users with established public health resources.
Official drug labels through DailyMed
Soothe Note also connects with DailyMed, a National Library of Medicine resource containing official drug labeling.
When available, Soothe Note can show how many official labels exist for a medication and provide a direct link to review them.
A medication may have many different manufacturers, formulations, and labels, so Soothe Note does not select one label and present it as applicable to everyone.
Medication shortages and recalls
Through openFDA, Soothe Note can check for medication shortage and recall information.
When relevant information is available, the app can display a short notice and provide a link to the original source.
This gives users another way to access current public information without Soothe Note interpreting what that information means for their individual treatment.
Understanding symptoms and cancer terminology
The new health information tools go beyond medications.
For symptoms and general health topics, Soothe Note can use MedlinePlus to help users find plain-language educational resources.
For cancer-specific terminology, Soothe Note connects with the National Cancer Institute's Dictionary of Cancer Terms.
That means an unfamiliar term such as neutropenia can be paired with an explanation from a resource specifically designed around cancer information.
Built with privacy in mind
We designed these tools so public health information services do not need access to someone's Soothe Note account or personal health history.
When a user requests health information, the app sends the search term to Soothe Note's own server. Our server then requests the relevant public information.
The outside source does not receive the user's Soothe Note account, health history, medication history, symptom history, or other personal records as part of that lookup.
Frequently requested educational information may also be temporarily cached so it can load faster and remain available if an external information source is temporarily unavailable.
Information, not medical advice
These features are built for reference and education.
Soothe Note does not diagnose conditions, recommend medications, determine treatments, or turn information from these sources into personalized medical advice.
Each result identifies where the information came from so users can review the original source and bring better-informed questions to their healthcare team.
Soothe Note is not trying to replace the doctor.
We're trying to make the information surrounding cancer care a little easier to understand.
Written by
Soothe Note Team — Cancer patient and caregiver support
Updates from the Soothe Note team about the product, mission, and what we are learning from patients and caregivers.
