Healthchain Stories: PALDOC

Healthchain
Stories

PALDOC
Empowering chronic pain patients

The need

Chronic pain remains one of the most complex and resource-intensive challenges in healthcare. In the Region of Murcia, the Servicio Murciano de Salud (SMS) — serving 1.47 million residents — faced a fragmented care model that left many chronic pain patients cycling between primary care and specialists, often without relief.

Patients endured long wait times, inconsistent care plans, and limited follow-up. This reactive approach strained the healthcare system and left patients disempowered, with deteriorating quality of life and rising frustration.

SMS identified the need for a continuous, holistic, and patient-centered care solution that could break this cycle and reduce pressure on the system.

The HealthChain Support

HealthChain supported Healthcare Organisations in identifying their innovation challenges and selecting companies to address them. They worked closely as an interregional team to co-create, test, and validate a solution aligned with real clinical workflows, patient needs, and organisational constraints. The project provided financial and business support to boost the solution’s market-readiness and commercialisation.

The
Solution

PALDOC (Plataforma de Atención Líquida para el Dolor Crónico) is an innovative, co-created digital platform developed within the HealthChain i3 framework by Idi Eikon and Digimevo.

PALDOC can be understood as a digital companion that people use on their phone or computer to help them live better with chronic pain. It works like a coach, guiding them day by day to understand their pain and learn how to take care of it, while also acting as a window that allows healthcare professionals to see how patients are doing without the need for constant hospital visits.

Through PALDOC, people can learn why they experience pain, track how they feel each day, follow videos and exercises designed to support their wellbeing, and gradually feel less afraid of their condition and more in control of their lives. At the same time, doctors and other health professionals can follow patients remotely, step in early when they see warning signs, and work together as a team — including physicians, nurses, psychologists, and physiotherapists — to provide coordinated and timely care.

The solution includes the following features plus a curated content hub that helps patients build pain management skills and psychological resilience.

Patient Empowerment
& Self-Management

Personalised educational tools and interactive content support behavior change and condition understanding.

Digital Tools &
Wearables Integration

Mobile/web app with self-monitoring features, wearable connectivity, and real-time data sharing.

Multidisciplinary, Proactive Clinical Follow-Up

Dashboards enable continuous review by physicians, nurses, psychologists, and physiotherapists — allowing for timely, preventive intervention.

Educational &
Motivational Library

PALDOC includes a digital library of resources that patients can explore independently to build skills and strategies for managing pain, and building resilience

Impact

As a result of this collaboration and the positive outcomes achieved, PALDOC gained traction beyond the Region of Murcia attracting attention from:

Spanish insurance companies helping validate their business model,
SMEs willing to collaborate and define new partnerships, and
Healthcare organisations across Portugal and Spain.

Outcomes

Results have been evaluated through a 6-month pilot with 30+ patients, using before/after comparisons on health outcomes, satisfaction, usability, and efficiency. The pilot demonstrated positive progress toward improved chronic pain management, showing enhanced patient engagement, and better care coordination. Results indicate:

A decrease in the perception of pain (measured using scales; ≈10%),
A decrease in the need for medications with consequent reduction in side effects (13%),
Increase in self-care (≈20%),
Improvement in accessibility to the health system (≈20%),
Better accessibility to healthcare through remote patient monitoring (53%),
Increase in their quality of life (33%, using EQ5D, EuroQol 5D),
Higher satisfaction and usability for patients (8.5/10, CSAT, Customer Satisfaction Score) and healthcare professionals (84.5/100, SUS, System Usability Scale).

Sustainability

Following the pilot, PALDOC achieved a stable, clinically validated version of their solution:

SMS is developing an adoption strategy to scale the solution regionally and embed it into standard care pathways.
The SMEs are actively exploring business relationships with healthcare organisations across Spain and Portugal, particularly in chronic pain and oncology units.
Ongoing efforts are underway to overcome this post-pilot stage and climb up to the commercialisation stage and certification milestones (CE Mark, MDR).

Testimonials

The results have been very significant and have surprised us. Participants report a noticeable improvement in their pain, a greater sense of control and emotional well-being, and, in many cases, a significant reduction of painkiller consumption. Their families are also surprised and very happy with the change. The daughter of one participant told me: ‘’My father used to spend all day at home feeling sad and complaining, and now he does not come inside and is always doing things, he even does gymnastics’’.

Through this project, I have learned that my pain is neuropathic, and that if I relax when pain comes, I can manage it better. I really enjoyed the workshops and videos, and I felt supported because I see that there are other people with chronic pain like me. Everything has helped me change my mindset and live happier.

For IT companies like us, it has been a very positive surprise how co-creation processes with health organizations and patients pave the way to successful implementations of innovative e-health services, supported by HealthChain during the whole process. Starting up from pre-existing IT solutions, development plans are clear, expectations are properly managed, stakeholders commitment with the project is strong and everybody works together toward a common goal: improving patient’s quality of life on a time-sustainable way.