Helping patients and doctors track IBD impact with an app | Takeda Stories
A new app can help patients and health care providers track IBD impact
Watch this two-minute video to see how the app can help IBD patients track and manage aspects of their disease.
People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) often struggle to control their lives. Apart from living with abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, toilet urgency, fatigue and other physical symptoms, they can also have day-to-day struggles such as tracking their symptoms and finding nearby toilets.
An interactive app developed by Takeda aims to help change this by empowering IBD patients to take a more active role in tracking their symptoms and their overall care. “It’s become my right-hand in helping me manage the daily struggles of living with IBD,” one patient who uses the app said. “I wish I’d had it when I was first diagnosed.”
For you, with you
We developed the multi-language "For You With You IBD" companion app in collaboration with patients and health care providers. The app was then leveraged by the Health Outcomes Observatory (H2O) to share it with their patient/provider community. H2O is a public-private collaborative alliance that aims to incorporate patient experiences and preferences in care decisions, using a standardized data governance, patient consent and infrastructure system across Europe. The app aggregates health data for research purposes, to foster innovation.
H2O co-lead Professor Tanja Stamm (who is also head of the Institute for Outcomes Research at the Medical University of Vienna’s Center for Medical Data Science), says*, “Digitally collected patient-reported outcomes [PROs] offer valuable insights into patient health and disease management. This app demonstrates that digital tools can offer a sustainable and user-friendly solution for capturing PROs as part of routine care.”
A treatment-agnostic approach
The app is a fully confidential and secure tool that incorporates insights from both patients and healthcare professionals. Currently, patients in countries across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific can use it to track their symptoms. The app also reminds them of their doctor appointments, hospital visits and blood tests. There is even a public toilet finder, which can help relieve some of the stress of leaving home.
Features include a validated tool used by physicians around the world, known as the IBD Disk1. This highly visual symptom tracking aid, incorporated into the app, allows patients to track various aspects of their life, such as sleep, energy levels and social interaction. Patients can then report these findings to their health care providers via the app, to help personalize and potentially improve their care.
Patient empowerment through knowledge
Tools such as the "For You With You IBD" companion app are a vital component of our patient-centered strategy to embed digital technology in everything we do, continuing a legacy of innovation that has lasted more than 240 years. Marcelo Freire, M.D., our vice president Global Medical Affairs for Gastroenterology, says the app aims to address an unmet need in IBD care.
“The key to patient empowerment is knowledge,” he explains. “We’re helping patients better understand how their disease impacts them, which in turn could help lead to a more informed dialogue with their treating physician and ultimately better disease management.”
Share this story