IBDmate has positive impact on patients and hospital service

A new way of delivering education and information to young people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has shown a positive impact on patients and the hospital’s IBD service.

Earlier this year the Cambridge University Hospital (CUH) paediatric IBD team at Addenbrooke’s Hospital started using IBDmate, an education platform developed by IBDrelief in conjunction with the hospital. Through IBDmate healthcare teams can ‘prescribe’ educational courses to young people and their families.

A study¹ looking at the impact on patient satisfaction and medication adherence and understanding found positive impacts on patients through increased knowledge, accessibility, medication adherence and trust in information after the introduction of IBDmate.

A baseline measure of patient satisfaction with the paediatric IBD service and their understanding of medications was established prior to the introduction of IBDmate and then reassessed to understand its impact. This was done through questionnaires, with 33 responses prior to the introduction and 31 post introduction of IBDmate carried out by CUH neonatal and paediatric gastroenterology pharmacist Emma Williams.

It was found that the introduction of IBDmate to CUH’s paediatric IBD service saw:

• Medication related calls to the helpline drop from 25% to 15%
• An increase in satisfaction with the way information is received from the IBD service (from 88% satisfied to 100% satisfied)
• An increase in satisfaction with the quality of information (from 94% satisfied to 100% satisfied)
• Greater understand of the roles of the clinical members of the IBD team, how medication works and the side effects of medication
• A drop in unintentional medication omission (from 10% regularly missing medications to 0%)

The findings were presented by Emma Williams at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress on September 24th, 2021. She said: “I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to present IBDmate and my associated project to pharmacists from across the UK. 

“There was excellent engagement with the presentation on both days of the conference and lots of great ideas shared on the next steps. 

“I am looking forward to taking the project forward and hopefully being able to share the presentation with more healthcare professionals.”

Seb Tucknott, co-founder and CEO of IBDrelief and an ulcerative colitis patient, said: “IBDmate is something we have been working on for some time and it’s been fantastic to work with the dedicated paediatric IBD team at Addenbrooke’s Hospital to develop it into something that’s useful for both patients and clinical teams.

“At IBDrelief our mission is to improve the lives of people around the world with inflammatory bowel disease and we strongly believe one of the ways to do this is to improve the quality of, and access to, IBD education so patients can feel empowered when managing their condition. 

“IBDmate is a key part of helping us to achieve this mission and it’s great to see these positive early results.”

IBDmate is an online platform for young people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and their families to learn about Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and IBDU. 

It includes hundreds of videos featuring IBD experts and patients, covering topics such as understanding IBD, symptoms, treatment, tests and procedures, complications and patient stories and experiences, as well as quizzes, articles, FAQs and a glossary explaining medical jargon.

IBDmate is currently in use at Addenbrooke’s Hospital (part of Cambridge University Hospitals) and is going live with several other paediatric IBD teams in the UK soon.

You can find out more about IBDmate at www.ibdmate.com