A new toolkit backed by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant aims to translate scientific evidence into practice, using digital medicine and electronic patient-reported outcomes (e-PRO).
UC Davis Health is joining with several of the nation's top health systems as part of a NIH-sponsored digital health initiative.
During the pandemic, telemedicine and digital monitoring at home have become mainstream for various chronic diseases. However, it can be challenging to implement these functions in a mainstream clinical practice for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) without disrupting clinical workflow.
This initiative aims to launch the IBD Digital Therapeutics Toolkit within electronic health records. The goals are to establish baseline levels of disease control, and to implement automated precision-matched digital and medical home interventions. Considerations may include digital skills, social determinants, behavioral health, treat-to-target goals through apps, and referral to interdisciplinary care.
"Our hypothesis is that medical homes supported by a unified EHR-connected platform and automated IBD-specific digital interventions will translate to a sustainable improvement in population health outcomes," said Ashish Atreja, CIO and chief digital health officer at UC Davis Health, and co-principal investigator of the NIH grant. "By leveraging the efficiency and scalability of digital health and AI, we hope to create a national model for proactive and comprehensive care for every single IBD patient."
