Turning to smartphone apps in order to get a handle on these factors for a disease as complex and individualized as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, or indeterminate colitis is common. However, trying to fit IBD-specific situations into a generic health or fitness tracker may not provide much utility. After all, there are certain symptoms and extra-intestinal manifestations that might only be recognized by those who truly understand IBD.

There are now some apps that are specific to IBD and can help those living with these conditions to track symptoms, learn about disease management, connect with others with their condition, and communicate with their physicians.

Informational articles within the app are “insights” that are suggested by users and further vetted by the Gali team to ensure credibility. Users can talk to Gali, the AI interface which has a photo and a persona, and ask her questions about their disease. Gali can then assist the user by finding information about the topic and sending that information, in the form of articles, videos, or other content, directly into the users’ news feed.

Gali Health says that many of their team members live with a chronic condition and that people with IBD are consulted in the development of new features for the app. Team members have backgrounds in biotech, genomics, consumer products, clinical research, and patient advocacy.

Funding for Gali comes from institutional private investors in biotech, consumer products, and genomics. The team partners with Stanford Hospital, the University of California San Francisco, and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and plans to build studies using the aggregated data collected in the app. Gali Health is free and available in the iOS store. 

Users can connect one-on-one with other patients that the interface “matches” them with, based on diagnosis, current treatments, and lifestyle factors. New matches are created every day within the app, and users can take the conversation from there, connecting on an individual level.

The app also features groups that are focused on particular interests, including treatment and side effects, lifestyle, career, relationships, being newly diagnosed, diet, mental health, and inspiration. The app creators stress that the groups are moderated in order to keep them on topic and to make them more useful and relevant to users.

The app also includes content in the form of podcasts and articles from bloggers and non-profit and industry partners, as well as content from the Healthline site. The app is free and is available for both Apple and Android devices. 

My IBD Manager, which is for people living with IBD, is billed as a “one-stop-shop” app to monitor disease information, learn more about these diseases, and share information with healthcare providers.

Ask AGA: IBD is the clinical platform for healthcare providers, which pairs with the patient platform. If their clinician is using the clinical platform, patients can connect with them in the app. However, the app can also be used by patients on its own to track disease factors.

My IBD Manager includes a treatment monitor, symptom tracker, food log, and a journal that helps users record more individualized information such as doctor appointments, mood, and physical activity. Information on IBD vetted by experts is also available in the app and includes articles, worksheets, and videos (including some materials in Spanish). The app is available for both iOS and Android devices. 

Thanks to the development of several apps that are exclusively focused on IBD, patients have a variety of choices available to them. No matter if the focus is on tracking symptoms, learning more about the disease, or connecting with other patients, one of these apps can help in serving those needs.