The CUH PIBD department, and IBDrelief have developed an application - IBDmate for children with IBD and their guardians. The app aims to improve the health literacy and quality of life for patients. With IBDmate, the PIBD team can 'prescribe' educational courses from hundreds of videos, articles and quizzes featuring the PIBD team. Topics include living with IBD, medication, meet your team, tests and research. A baseline measure of patient satisfaction with the PIBD service and their understanding of medications was established prior to the app introduction and subsequently reassessed to understand the app's impact.
The introduction of IBDmate has had numerous positive impacts on patients through increased knowledge, accessibility, medication adherence and trust in information.
This project clearly demonstrates the benefits and further potential of the app although several areas would benefit from additional work including resources for younger children and further research on the impact of IBDmate on freeing up clinical resources.
