Personalized Technologies in Chronic Gastrointestinal Disorders: Self-monitoring and Remote Sensor Technologies

Abstract

With increased access to high-speed Internet and smartphone devices, patients have started to use mobile applications (apps) for various health needs. These mobile apps are now increasingly used in integration with telemedicine and wearables to support fitness, health education, symptom tracking, and collaborative disease management and care coordination. More recently, evidence (especially around remote patient monitoring) has started to build in some chronic diseases, and some of the digital health technologies have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration. With the changing healthcare landscape and push for value-based care, adoption of these digital health initiatives among providers is bound to increase. Although so far there is a dearth of published evidence about effectiveness of these apps in gastroenterology care, there are ongoing trials to determine whether remote patient monitoring can lead to improvement in process metrics or outcome metrics for patients with chronic gastrointestinal diseases.

Keywords: Apps; Chronic Disease Management; Gastroenterology; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases; Mobile Applications; Telemedicine; Wearables.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors disclose no conflicts. The authors disclose that they are part of the innovation team at Sinai Applab that has developed 2 of the mobile apps references in the article: “HealthPROMISE” and “HepCure”.

Copyright © 2016 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Figures

Figure 1

mhealth app category business potential in next 5 years showing remote monitoring apps have the biggest market potential of all mHealth app categories. With permission from Search2-guidance, mHealth app developer Economics 2014.

Figure 2

mHealth app category share. CME, continuing medical education; PHR, patient health record. With permission from Search2guidance, mHealth app developer Economics 2014.

Figure 3

A newly diagnosed IBD patient’s care coordination and follow-up in remote monitoring platform through a combination of mobile app, telemedicine, and wearables devices. EHR, electronic health record.

Figure 4

States with parity laws for private insurance coverage of telemedicine (May 2015) classified into 4 groups on the basis of their corresponding scores, with group A having full parity, meaning comparable reimbursement policy for telemedicine services when compared with in-person services, and group F showing the poorest scores. With permission from American Telemedicine Association (ATA).