Improve IBD Monitoring with New Gut Check Mobile App

Mobile applications can significantly aid in treatment for gastrointestinal conditions.

The latest mobile app, Gut Check (Janssen Biotech, Inc.), works to improve disease monitoring in patients suffering from ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn’s disease (CD), and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).

Gut Check allows IBD patients to track their symptoms, well being, and lifestyle habits daily, and share the information with healthcare professionals in real-time and automatically.

According to reviews, the application administers NIH validated bi-weekly patient-reported outcome surveys (PROMIS) to help monitor progress. Additionally, healthcare professionals can use Gut Check to gain access to their patients’ data through HIPAA-compliant dashboards on their computers or tablets, and allows for local and national comparisons of patient data.

Ralph, McKibbin, MD, gastroenterologist, Blair Gastroenterology Associates, remarked in a news release, “From my experience, people living with IBD often underreport their symptoms — they tend to focus on how they have been feeling the past few days versus the past few months. Early intervention is key when it comes to caring for IBD. New platforms like Gut Check will help me to more closely monitor my patients in real-time.”

The app, free for IBD patients, and the dashboard, free for healthcare professionals, also provides patients educational tips on exercise and diet, a calendar to help organize appointments and local IBD community events, and a GPS system to easily locate restrooms.

“Managing IBD is a significant challenge, and improving the efficiency and timeliness of communication between patients and healthcare professionals is critical in providing optimal care. We created Gut Check to enable real-time communication between healthcare professionals and patients, with the ultimate goal of enabling healthcare professionals to more closely monitor disease progression,” concluded Andrew Greenspan, MD, vice president of medical affairs, Janssen Biotech, Inc.