How Olya works with your care team
Olya explains things. Your care team decides things. Olya helps you keep track of what happens and walk in ready, and your care team sees only what you choose to show them.
What Olya will never do
- Diagnose you
- Tell you which treatment to choose
- Tell you to change or stop a medicine
- Tell you whether a symptom is an emergency
- Send anything to your doctor on its own
Those are different jobs, and Olya stays on its side of the line.
Tell Olya what’s happening. You choose what’s shared.
Say whatever’s going on, including the parts that feel too small to bring up. Some of it Olya can answer on the spot. Some of it is worth your care team knowing, and that’s what ends up in your summary and your list of questions.
Olya is not connected to your clinic. Your doctor’s office does not have a login. Nobody there gets an alert when you talk to Olya.
When you want to share something, you send it. You can print your summary, email it, or hand your phone across the desk.
So your care team sees what you decide to show them, and nothing else.
This also means Olya cannot watch over you. If something feels wrong, call your care team. If it feels like an emergency, call 911.
What happens when Olya doesn’t know
A lot. Cancer care is specific to you, and most of the important questions depend on details Olya doesn’t have.
So when Olya isn’t sure, it says so, and turns it into a question for the right person on your care team instead of guessing. When something shouldn’t wait, it says that too.
You
My fingers have been numb for two weeks. Should I stop the chemo?
Olya
That numbness is a known side effect of oxaliplatin, and it’s something your team watches closely. But whether to change anything depends on your exact dose, where you are in the cycle, and how the tumor is responding, and I don’t have enough to answer that.
I’ve written this down for Dr. Chen: “Numbness has been daily for two weeks and is getting worse. Is it time to adjust the oxaliplatin?”
If it gets worse before your visit, call the office. They’d rather hear from you early.
Where Olya’s information comes from
- Trusted sources
- NCCN and ASCO guidelines, plus trusted cancer information from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.
- Connections are checked
- When Olya connects something to your treatment, it traces back to a specific passage in an approved source, and is checked against that source before it’s used.
- Clinical library is reviewed
- An oncologist reviews these clinical connections before they go into Olya, and can reject any of them. That review applies to the library Olya draws from, not to individual conversations. Individual responses are generated by Olya and are not reviewed before you see them. Clinical review is provided through the Wondrlink Foundation.
Sometimes Olya will ask you about something you haven’t mentioned. If you’re on a medicine that often causes joint aches, Olya may ask once whether you’ve noticed any. That isn’t a diagnosis or a prediction. It’s a question, asked so it doesn’t go unsaid.
Better questions, not competing answers
You can read something online, walk into your appointment, and spend the fifteen minutes you have trying to work out whether it applies to you.
Olya is built the other way. It helps you ask better questions, not arrive with treatment decisions already made. Your care team brings clinical judgment, examination findings, and responsibility for your treatment. Olya helps you bring the context and questions that make that conversation more useful.
What you bring to your care team
Instead of spending the visit reconstructing the last three weeks, your care team gets a short picture of what changed, what stayed the same, and what you want to ask.
This is what you bring in. One page, plain, and short enough to read before the exam starts.
OLYA SUMMARY
Maria R. · DOB 04/12/1961
Prepared for: Dr. Chen · Visit 3/14
Covers: 2/21 – 3/13 (21 days)
SYMPTOMS
“Couldn’t button my shirt” — 3/9
OTHER VISITS
3/02 Dr. Patel, surgery · cleared, no revision needed
3/07 CT abdomen · report uploaded
MEDICINES
Reports 2 missed capecitabine doses (3/05, 3/06)
QUESTIONS FROM MARIA
- The numbness is worse. Should the oxaliplatin dose change?
- Is missing two capecitabine doses something to worry about?
- My daughter asked about genetic testing. Should I be tested?
Who’s behind Olya
Olya is built by Cancer Connector LLC. We work with the Wondrlink Foundation, a nonprofit in personalized cancer care, which provides our clinical advisors and connects us with patients and families.
Olya is free for you and your family, and that’s how we intend to keep it. We’re building the parts that clinics and health systems pay for, so patients never have to.
There are no ads. And we do not sell your information. Ever.
That’s the whole arrangement.
Olya helps you understand what’s happening and get ready for your visits. Your care team decides your care. Nothing reaches your care team unless you hand it over.
Curious what talking to Olya is actually like? There’s an early preview at demo.olya.health. It’s a prototype, not the finished product.
For clinicians and oncology practices
Thinking about telling your patients about Olya?
We’re looking to work with a small number of oncology practices to see how Olya fits into real care. Patients bring their summary to you, on paper or on a phone, and you read it in about a minute. That’s the whole integration. Nothing to install, nothing to approve, and nothing lands in your inbox that a patient didn’t hand you.
If you’d like to talk, we’d like to hear from you.