Newest Digital Health Programs Address Digestive Disease Management

The following is a guest article by Bill Snyder is CEO of Vivante Health.

More than 70 million Americans suffer from a wide gamut of digestive diseases, but until recently few digital health solutions were available to help them manage their conditions. There are smartphone apps for tracking everything from exercise, sleep and calorie consumption to blood pressure, COVID-19 symptoms and even diabetes management, but gut health has largely been left in the digital dust – in part because there is no one-size-fits-all solution for a category spanning so many different disorders.

Today that’s changing as health tech companies begin to tackle the toll that chronic digestive disease takes on patients, productivity and healthcare costs.

Reducing Medical Spend & GI Symptoms

On the patient side, the havoc wreaked by GI disease includes debilitating effects like nausea, constipation and diarrhea as well as a staggering 8.3 million emergency room visits annually for digestive complaints. (Abdominal pain is the #1 cause of acute ER admissions.)

On the medical spend and productivity side, the toll includes $136 billion in annual medical claims – exceeding the total healthcare bill for trauma, mental health and even heart disease – along with a per-person cost of up to $72,000 in yearly prescription drugs and up to 35 days of absenteeism per year. GI issues are also among the top five healthcare expenses for many companies.

Early efforts to utilize digital health programs to address these challenges indicate that a comprehensive approach can help chip away at both the human and the financial toll by significantly reducing flare-ups and associated medical claims.

One Organization’s Experience

One large nonprofit employer that implemented Vivante Health’s GIThrive compared claims data for 470 participating employees against 1,880 non-participants for the year before and the year after program adoption. Users were matched with non-users based on gender, age category, presence of any GI disease, and healthcare cost.

After removing outliers with a total medical spend above $50,000 from both groups, the analysis revealed that the employer had achieved an average savings of more than $840 annually per member – a 15% reduction in digestive-related healthcare expenses. Pharmacy spend had actually increased because of medication adherence encouraged by the program’s health coaches and dietitians, but that was more than offset by a substantial drop in emergency room visits and inpatient admissions stemming from participants’ better management of their digestive symptoms.

Equally significant, 70% of employees enrolled in the program reported major improvements in their overall digestive health and well-being. As one participant said, “My gut is healing, and the support from my dietitian makes all the difference.”

The Power of Personalization

Like other digital health applications, digital digestive disease programs benefit from the ability to tailor nutrition and behavior modification recommendations to each user’s symptoms, health profile and even their food likes and dislikes. These advantages are a direct result of automated analysis of user questionnaires and symptom tracking as well as users’ ability to remotely access registered dietitians and health coaches for live chats or phone meetings for one-on-one support.

Some platforms offer additional personalization capabilities such as at-home microbiome analysis of each user’s gut chemistry and hydrogen breath testing that helps identify food triggers based on intestinal absorption.

These features help generate individualized action plans that combine with other app-based tools such as symptom tracking, food diaries, recipe libraries and educational materials to help users monitor and manage their conditions, improve medication compliance, and ultimately reduce digestive-related episodes without lab visits or in-person appointments.

Help for Undiagnosed Users  

Another benefit of leveraging digital health capabilities to improve digestive health and wellness is the ability to make a difference in the lives of consumers suffering from GI symptoms who have never received a specific diagnosis. Some don’t realize their symptoms may be a sign of a serious condition or are embarrassed to discuss the issue with their doctors. Others have tried but failed to identify the cause of their digestive distress because of the time, expense and challenges involved in evaluating disorders that frequently have non-specific and/or overlapping symptoms, or because of the difficulty of getting an appointment with a gastroenterologist.

In fact, one survey of 2,000+ adults found that more than half of Americans experiencing GI symptoms at least several times a month have never mentioned the problem to their primary care doctor; only 24% of those who have consulted with a healthcare professional have received a diagnosis; and 11% reported visiting their primary care doctor two or more times before receiving a diagnosis or being referred to a specialist.

By requiring users to log food and symptoms daily, monitoring trends over time, and providing access to a care team to provide diet and lifestyle recommendations as well as encouragement, digital health programs can frequently help undiagnosed participants alleviate the frequency and/or severity of their GI troubles and potentially guide them to seek medical help.

Employee Benefit for Companies

While no comprehensive digital digestive health programs are currently available for consumers, companies are beginning to adopt corporate-focused solutions as part of a broader initiative to provide digital health benefits as a means of attracting talent, improving retention, and building a strong corporate culture.

One recent survey of more than 16,000 workers and 1,300 employers in 13 markets around the world found that 68% of U.S. employers plan to invest in more digital health solutions over the next five years. Another report found that the average U.S. employer already offers 14 discreet digital health solutions – nine from a health plan and five from third-party vendors.

Given the high cost of digestive disease in terms of medical spend, absenteeism and lost productivity even when users report for work, digital digestive health solutions promise to deliver significant value to both employers and employees by enabling users to take control of their GI symptoms. It’s yet another advance in the digital health movement that is fundamentally transforming healthcare delivery by increasing consumer access to solutions that can help them live better, healthier lives.

About Bill Snyder

Bill Snyder is CEO of Vivante Health, a digital healthcare company that is reinventing the way chronic conditions are managed. Vivante’s all-in-one gut health program, GIThrive, empowers people to improve digestive health through easy-to-use technology, advanced science and on-demand human support while also lowering their cost of care.

   

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