Damasco

In what situation is telemedicine in inflammatory bowel disease?

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term that encompasses ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and unclassifiable colitis. This chronic pathology is considered to be of emerging incidence in Latin America. In this region, the health system is fragmented between public and private hospitals, and there is limited access to said system. The use of mobile health applications is increasingly frequent as telemedicine care in chronic pathologies, fulfilling several functions: health education, symptom monitoring, promotion of therapeutic adherence, and clinical follow-up. There are mobile applications for patients with IBD that have improved the level of knowledge about IBD, therapeutic adherence and quality of life. However, several of these applications are only available to patients from the hospitals where they were developed, have few functions, are difficult to use, or are simply not in Spanish.

What is Damascus and what is it for?

Damasco is a mobile application that promotes telemedicine care and health education for IBD patients. Unlike other similar applications, Damasco is multifunctional, with the following functions: symptom recording, reminder of medication and pending studies, food diary, and bathroom GPS geolocator. Damasco is also a free application since it can be used by patients from any public and private hospital, and its cost is covered by the developers. In fact, there is a user for doctors, in order to access the symptom record and food diary of patients who authorize them. Damasco is also a very intuitive and easy-to-use application according to the user-patient acceptance test carried out on its prototype. Although it was originally sought to develop a mobile application aimed at Spanish-speaking patients with IBD, at the moment there is a Damascus version in English.

How did Damascus come about and where is it going?

The name "Damasco" comes from the acronym in English of the research responsible for its development: "Development and Assessment of a Mobile Application for Sanitary Support in Spanish's speaking with Crohn's and ulcerative Colitis". This is a multicenter project between gastroenterologists dedicated to IBD and IBD patients from public and private hospitals in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. This project sought in its initial phase to better understand therapeutic adherence, level of knowledge of the disease and use of social networks in patients with IBD. Subsequently, information was collected for the development of the mobile application itself. The computer development and updating of Damasco is the responsibility of mdconsgroup, a leading Ecuadorian company in technological solutions for health. Damasco seeks to be a key tool in the comprehensive care of patients with IBD, mainly those who speak Spanish from Latin America as well as from Spain and the Hispanic communities around the world.