Derm Dispatch: EczemaWise App and its Role in Patient-Centered Care

In a recent Derm Dispatch episode, Renata Block, DMSc, MMS, PA-C, spoke with Isabelle Thibau, MPH, director of the EczemaWise app from the National Eczema Association (NEA), about the clinical and patient care implications of this digital tool.

EczemaWise is a free, patient- and caregiver-facing app designed to empower self-management of eczema while enhancing shared decision-making in clinical practice. Its 3 core goals are: (1) activating patients and caregivers in their care, (2) supporting individualized, collaborative treatment decisions with health care providers, and (3) advancing research through real-world data collection.¹

The app allows patients to track symptoms, treatments, potential triggers, and photographs of disease activity. These longitudinal data points, especially valuable for a relapsing/remitting condition like atopic dermatitis, help overcome recall bias that often limits office-based assessments. Patients can generate printable appointment summaries, facilitating more meaningful clinical encounters. Currently, more than 20,000 patients and caregivers use EczemaWise.

Clinician involvement was central to development, with input from an advisory group of dermatologists, allergists, and other specialists, as well as guidance from the HOME (Harmonizing Outcome Measures for Eczema) initiative. Validated instruments such as PO-SCORAD and the Atopic Dermatitis Control Tool (ADCT) are embedded within the app, ensuring clinically relevant patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

Thibau emphasized that eczema is a “quality-of-life disease,” where subjective patient experiences often diverge from clinician observation. By capturing PROs alongside photos and symptom diaries, EczemaWise provides complementary data that better reflect the patient’s lived experience. Clinicians have begun recommending the app to select patients, particularly those needing help identifying triggers or assessing treatment efficacy.

Importantly, EczemaWise is free and accessible, with potential to reduce disparities in care access. Its educational features introduce patients to available treatment options in lay terms, prompting more informed discussions during visits. The app recently received the 2025 Made with Patients Award, recognizing its patient-centered design and global impact.²

For dermatology clinicians, EczemaWise represents an adjunctive tool to optimize limited appointment time, foster shared decision-making, and integrate patient voices into longitudinal eczema management.

References

1. EczemaWise for healthcare providers. National Eczema Association. Accessed August 27, 2025. https://www.eczemawise.org/for-healthcare-providers
2. The Made With Patients Awards. Synapse. Accessed August 27, 2025. https://patientengagement.synapseconnect.org/campaign/made-with-patients-awards-2025-mwpa