New digital app ‘pal’ offers support for caregivers of terminally ill patients

Type: Behind the story
Topic: Humanity
Topic: Impact
Publication date: 22 Apr 2025

Each year, many people suffer the helplessness and emotional trauma of caring for loved ones who have been diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses.

Caregivers support app

It is something Nara Moripen experienced firsthand, and it inspired her to co-found pal – one of the first apps in the world designed to support caregivers as they navigate complex plans for loved ones who are receiving palliative care. Based in the Netherlands, pal has already helped thousands of families.  

Living Lab Social Domain and Technology and THUAS in The Hague

A collaboration between pal and The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) within the Living Lab Social Domain and Technology is exploring ways in which the Dutch healthcare system can better support ‘informal caregivers’. 

The idea for pal came from Nara Moripen’s own experiences caring for her mother who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Immediately, Nara left her job and became a full-time carer, but was faced with almost impossible challenges at every turn. 

Nara Moripen. “Like many other people in similar situations I found myself trying my best, but often failing. I was not a trained caregiver, not a doctor, and here I was caring for someone with quite complex medical needs. The main takeaway I took was that there needed to be a better way for people to access the information that could potentially make their lives a little easier.”
Nara and her co-Founder, Azi Doost, designed pal to work in three main areas:
  1. Shared care planning - The app ensures everyone in your wider network of carers, friends and family has access to the same information, allowing you to easily allocate tasks, coordinate appointments, and share the care burden
  2. Symptom monitoring and well-being management - An essential part of caring for someone with a life-limiting illness is ensuring their symptoms are managed so they can enjoy the best quality of life. The app helps you log symptoms effectively and access the right content, without resorting to Google!
  3. Content library - The pal team works with clinicians and specialists to provide content that is bespoke to each user, helping carers to navigate complex symptoms. The library is expanding all the time as more healthcare partners come on board 
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A Dutch approach to a universal challenge 

The municipality of The Hague has played a significant role in pal’s continuing development. After winning the Caretech Network Program award in December 2023, Nara and her colleagues collaborated with The Hague University of Applied Sciences on a research project which looked at ways they might formally incorporate pal into the Dutch healthcare system. 

Roos van der Vaart, senior researcher at The Hague University of Applied sciences. “At The Hague University of Applied Sciences, we’re proud that our Living Lab helped raise awareness of this tool. Together with health professionals, we explored how Pal could fit within Dutch healthcare. We looked at which types of professionals and organizations could support its implementation, and which factors — like user experience and locally relevant content — could stimulate its uptake.”

Nara has found The Hague to be a city that embraces all the challenges and opportunities start-ups face. Alongside the collaboration with THUAS, she and her colleagues have met many other similar organisations with aspirations to make the world a better place. 

Nara Moripen. “Coming to The Hague, we were surprised by the openness to health tech in general, and the role the municipality has played in trying to get diverse organisations working together towards common goals. The city helps with funding for early stage start-ups and makes introductions to other organizations working in the city. It’s really a unique ecosystem, and one that has helped us to thrive.”

The longer term aim for Nara is to scale up usage of the app, helping more people navigate what can be an extremely stressful and traumatic time as they care for loved ones that are terminally ill.  

Nara Moripen. “The main objective is to get the app into the hands of as many people around the world as need the help. One of our main focus areas is to collaborate with healthcare partners that will help us reach these users, be they hospitals, GP surgeries, charities, oncology specialists, and so on. There are many healthcare professionals that do amazing work within palliative care and our goal is to have them advocating for us and using pal to help caregivers and their families.”

Read more

A familiar tool, in an unfamiliar space

Pal is a digital care tool for families navigating a serious or life-limiting illness. Pal enables earlier access to palliative care, and helps family carers tackle their biggest challenges in at-home daily caregiving.

Pal App source Technologie voor thuis

The report of integration of Pal in the Dutch healthcare system

This report presents the outcomes of an explorative study on the integration in the Dutch healthcare system of a mobile application, Pal, to support informal care providers of patients in palliative home care. This study is conducted by The Hague University of Applied Sciences for the Municipality of The Hague (Technologie voor Thuis programma).