Footnotes

• EB and KK are joint first authors.

• EB and KK contributed equally.

• Contributors CN was the principal investigator. CN conceived of the idea for PatientLink. CN, AC and RS contributed to design and development of PatientLink. KK and EB designed surveys and performed data analysis. KK, EB and LS performed participant recruitment and study execution. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests The authors report no proprietary or commercial interest in any product mentioned or concept discussed in this article. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. CN is the director of SonicIncytes, an elastography imaging company, and president of Cosmic Medical, a respiratory device non-profit. CN receives research funding from Pfizer and Roche for endeavours unrelated to this manuscript.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.