Remote Patient Monitoring in IBD: Current State and Future Directions

Abstract

RPM has been associated with improvements in health outcomes and indicators across a broad range of chronic diseases. However, there is limited data on the effectiveness of RPM in IBD care. From the emerging literature and body of research, we found promising results about the feasibility of integrating RPM in IBD care and RPM's capacity to support IBD improvement in key process and outcome metrics. Concerns regarding privacy and provider acceptability have limited the mass integration of RPM to date. However, with the healthcare industry's move toward value-based population care and the advent of novel payment models for RPM reimbursement, the adoption of RPM into standard IBD care practices will likely increase as the technology continues to improve and become a mainstream tool for healthcare delivery in the near future.

Pathogenesis and clinical perspectives of extraintestinal manifestations in inflammatory bowel diseases

“…Daily monitoring of UC through TrueColours UC improved UC management while also reducing the burden placed on individual and healthcare services [ 110 ]. These applications can not only remotely monitor patients via electronic patient-reported outcome measures (PROs) or device-generated data (such as activity trackers) but also improves patient engagement [ 111 ]. The goal of recent IBD therapies is moving toward a therapeutic-targeted strategy using PROs, biomarkers of inflammation, and mucosal healing to optimize therapeutics and should also be used for the treatment of EIMs.…”

COVID‐19: A strong call for remote medicine in inflammatory bowel disease

“…10 By incorporating remote patient-monitoring methods into standard care practices, and closely monitoring disease during patients' real-life conditions (at home, at work, or even when traveling) physicians would acquire a more comprehensive understanding of what could affect their health outcomes than that available at present. 11 Furthermore, the implementation of telemedicine services for patients with IBD is associated with better patient satisfaction and a significant improvement in their quality of life, which may be cost-effective in the long term. 12,13 In addition to direct savings, as telemedicine is much cheaper than face-to-face visits, without decreasing the quality of care patients are offered, telemedicine services are associated with other positive health outcomes, such as patients' increased adherence to medication and their better understanding of follow-up plans.…”

Characteristics of Future Models of Integrated Outpatient Care

“…We use the terms ‘remote surveillance’ and ‘remote monitoring’ for the collection of information from the patient when she/he is not in the office/clinic or in the hospital. Others use such terms as ‘remote patient monitoring’ [174], ‘remote monitoring of patient self-care’ [175], and ‘lifestyle monitoring’ [176].…”