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Review
. 2023 Sep 20;13(4):194-209.
doi: 10.5662/wjm.v13.i4.194.

Telemedicine in inflammatory bowel diseases: A new brick in the medicine of the future?

Antonietta Gerarda Gravina  1 , Raffaele Pellegrino  2 , Tommaso Durante  3 , Giovanna Palladino  2 , Rossella D'Onofrio  2 , Simone Mammone  2 , Giusi Arboretto  2 , Salvatore Auletta  2 , Giuseppe Imperio  2 , Andrea Ventura  2 , Mario Romeo  2 , Alessandro Federico  2
Affiliations
Review

Telemedicine in inflammatory bowel diseases: A new brick in the medicine of the future?

Antonietta Gerarda Gravina et al. World J Methodol. .

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic digestive disease that requires continuous monitoring by healthcare professionals to determine the appropriate therapy and monitor short-term and long-term complications. The progressive development of information technology has enabled healthcare personnel to deliver care services to patients remotely. Therefore, various applications of telemedicine in IBD management have evolved, including telemonitoring, teleconsulting, teleducation, telenursing, telenutrition, and telepathology. While evidence has been provided for some telemedicine applications, targeted studies are still required. This review summarises the major studies that have evaluated telemedicine and its application in the management of IBD.

Keywords: Crohn’s disease; Inflammatory bowel disease; Teleducation; Telemedicine; Telemonitoring; Telenutrition; Telepathology; Telepsychology; Ulcerative colitis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Telehealth modality proposed in the management of inflammatory bowel diseases. Various data-obtaining and telecommunication systems can be established between patients and physicians engaged in the direction of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) management. Combining these data and interactions leads to the genesis of various telemedicine applications in the IBD setting to ensure a range of outcomes (i.e., clinical, therapeutic, diagnostic, nutritional, psychological, etc.).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trends in telehealth research before and after the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak. Conducting a simple search in papers indexed in MEDLINE, it is glaring how since 2019 (the year in which the onset of today's coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic falls), there has been significant growth in papers produced combining telehealth with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). We also note, predictably, that before 2019 the mass of papers on IBD gradually showed a gradual growth trend in the period 1992-2008. The search for such data in this figure stopped on 2 April, 2023.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Inflammatory bowel disease patient telemedicine pathway. Based on the current evidence, various telemedicine applications are across the entire inflammatory bowel diseases management, from diagnosis to treatment setting and short-term and long-term monitoring of its effectiveness. Nevertheless, such telehealth applications are bidirectional. That is, they may have the potential to be both active (provided by the physician, psychologist, nurse or nutritionist, etc.) and passively requested by the patient from their healthcare managers on needs. IBD: Inflammatory bowel diseases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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