Damasco

What is the status of 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 have an 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 applications in health is increasingly common as telemedicine care in chronic pathologies, fulfilling several functions: health education, symptom monitoring, promotion of therapeutic adherence, and clinical monitoring. 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 in 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?
Damascus is a mobile application that promotes telemedicine care and health education for patients with IBD. Unlike other similar applications, Damascus is multifunctional, with the following functions: symptom record, medication reminder and pending studies, food diary, and bathroom GPS geolocator. Damascus 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 the patients they authorize. Damasco is also a very intuitive and easy-to-use application according to the user-patient acceptance test carried out on its prototype. Although we originally sought to develop a mobile application aimed at IBD patients who speak Spanish, there is currently a Damascus version in English.

How did Damascus come about and where is it going?
The name “Damasco” comes from the English acronym 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 gastroenterologist doctors dedicated to IBD and patients with IBD from public and private hospitals in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. In its initial phase, this project sought to better understand therapeutic adherence, level of knowledge of the disease and use of social networks in patients with IBD. Subsequently, information gathering was carried out for the development of the mobile application itself. The computer development and updating of Damascus is the responsibility of mdconsgroup, a leading Ecuadorian company in health technological solutions. Damascus seeks to be a key tool in the comprehensive care of patients with IBD, mainly those who speak Spanish from both Latin America and also from Spain and Hispanic communities around the world.