Patients: “Flexible treatment and telemedicine help against intestinal diseases”

“New technologies, as the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us,” will play an increasingly important role. I have a not so distant future “for patients with chronic inflammatory bowel disease (Mici)” I imagine it like this: certainly the first visit with the specialist is done in person and not in telemedicine. Then, in the morning, the doctor accesses his dashboard and finds himself in front of a picture of all his patients “, with data from” wearable technology, which already exists . Patients are monitored with objective parameters and on this basis the doctor decides to call those who need it to visit and not to check the patient who does not need particular attention. We pass from a ‘blockbuster approach’, in which the patient must go always in the hospital, to a ‘Netflix approach’, in which we try to bring the hospital as close as possible to the patient and offer assistance as close as possible to his home “. This is the vision of Salvo Leone, general manager of the Amici Onlus association. “We must make the effort to think that telemedicine is not just teleconsultation”, is the invitation launched today during the ‘Made for Freedom’ event, promoted by Takeda to turn the spotlight on the unmet needs of patients and on flexibility. of therapies: a concept that is also presented in relation to the new subcutaneous formulation of the monoclonal antibody vedolizumab, an intestinal selectivity biotechnological drug, already available in intravenous formulation for the treatment of adult patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or active Crohn’s disease . Telemedicine, Leone points out, is also “monitoring systems that monitor the patient at 360 degrees, evaluating how he is from a clinical point of view. They are tools that do not replace and must not replace the normal visit, but will help the doctor to limit inflow to the hospital only for patients who really need it. There would also be an improvement in terms of fewer accesses, lower direct and indirect costs and also lower risk of healthcare-related infections by decreasing hospital admissions through the tool of the visit from remote”. But for this to happen, warns the DG of Amici onlus, “the system must change completely, because one cannot think of managing certain data on platforms owned by international information giants”. This ‘intelligent’ use of telemedicine “would allow also to cut costs so much “, continues Leone, citing a data from a study by Enpam (National Insurance and Medical Assistance Authority), which” already in 2012 calculated the annual savings deriving from the use of equipment to be 3 billion euros digital thanks to the de-hospitalization of chronic patients made possible by technologies to support local medicine and home care. It is a strong element for the future “, he insists. What technology do doctors use today? According to the 2018-2019 report of the Digital Innovation in Healthcare Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, the most used tool to communicate with patients is email (81% of specialists, 85% of family doctors) and Whatsapp to make and move appointments. , but also for the exchange of clinical data and information (57% and 64%). From this starting point, according to the point of view of patients with Mici, we need to take a step further. In Italy “we made an assessment with Altems”, the High School of Economics and Management of Health Systems of the Catholic University, “which tells us that 746 euros a year are spent on treatment and, if you add the loss of productivity, o the fact of being accompanied on a visit by a family member, costs around 2,300 euros. These are costs – concludes the general manager of Amici Onlus – which must certainly be addressed and which we will have to deal with using strategies, including new technologies and the possibility of increasing flexibility in therapies and methods of administration. The world has changed, today we communicate and manage diseases differently. The only thing that has not changed is the unmet needs of the sick. We must find a way to use with moderation and common sense what technology makes available to us “.