Empowering IBD patients with remote disease monitoring

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects an estimated half a million people in the UK alone,1 and the impact of living with the condition extends far beyond managing symptoms. It leads to constant uncertainty and requires regular monitoring, with the added challenge of balancing healthcare needs with work, family and everyday life.  

Monitoring disease activity through faecal calprotectin testing is a critical part of IBD management, helping clinicians to identify inflammation, detect potential flares and make informed treatment decisions. Unfortunately, traditional faecal calprotectin testing pathways can be slow, cumbersome and inconvenient for patients, leading to long turnaround times for results – often several weeks – and reduced patient compliance. In this blog series, we will explore the current barriers to effective faecal calprotectin testing, the advantages of remote monitoring, and the benefits of this approach for both patients and IBD clinical teams. 

Traditional calprotectin testing can be a barrier for patients

Traditional faecal calprotectin testing pathways require patients to collect, package and post stool samples to a local or regional clinical laboratory service for testing, with routine testing often performed several times a year, even in the absence of flares. Unfortunately, many patients find collecting these samples unpleasant or embarrassing – with concerns around handling, storage and transport – and the logistics of this approach leads to unavoidable delays on top of routine turnaround times for sample testing and reporting. This means it can be three to four weeks before a patient receives their results, leading to extended periods of uncertainty and anxiety. This is especially frustrating for patients experiencing acute symptoms or seeking reassurance about their disease activity.  

These delays can make patients feel disconnected from their care, and can result in them simply not testing at all, because they find it inconvenient, uncomfortable or disruptive. The limitations of the current workflow also mean that many IBD patients have to attend frequent appointments with their care teams to monitor disease progression and check that medication is still effective, which can be challenging to fit into everyday life, and particularly uncomfortable during a flare.  

Patient engagement is critical for long-term IBD management

There is growing recognition in the NHS that chronic disease monitoring should fit around patients’ lives, not the other way around. This is part of a wider trend towards more patient-centred models of care, as simpler, more convenient and less disruptive testing helps patients to feel more in control of their condition and engaged with their care. As patient engagement is a key component of successful long-term IBD care, the more consistently patients participate in disease monitoring and management, the greater the opportunities to identify changes in disease activity before symptoms worsen, ultimately resulting in better outcomes. This is why an increasing number of NHS trusts are embracing remote IBD monitoring solutions – such as the SmarTest® Calprotectin Home test (Preventis®) – empowering patients to take an active role in their own disease monitoring. 

For many patients, this approach also removes some of the embarrassment associated with traditional testing methods. By reducing the need to handle, package and transport samples, the testing process becomes more discreet and convenient. The results are then returned to the patients in under 20 minutes via the app, helping to reduce the uncertainty associated with lengthy laboratory turnaround times. Instead of waiting weeks for information that may no longer reflect their condition, patients get immediate insights into their disease activity. This flexibility also allows monitoring to fit more naturally around work commitments, family responsibilities and daily routines. 

 Results are also automatically shared with the patient’s clinical team in real time, ensuring that monitoring remains fully integrated within the care pathway without any additional complexity. This means that patients remain seamlessly connected to their healthcare teams and feel supported without needing to attend clinics unnecessarily. They gain greater visibility into their disease status with the knowledge that clinicians have access to the same information, so can act when needed. This can help to reduce the frequency of calls from patients seeking reassurance while waiting for results, and has the potential to limit the number of in-person appointments required for disease and medication management. After switching to remote IBD monitoring with SmarTest, the University of Southampton found that this approach contributed to a significant reduction in hospital appointments, with the average interval between outpatient visits increasing from around four months to nearly a year.

Empowering IBD patients with remote monitoring

Many IBD patients are looking for healthcare solutions that offer greater flexibility and allow them to manage their conditions more easily within the context of their everyday lives. However, traditional faecal calprotectin pathways can unintentionally create barriers to engagement with inconvenience, embarrassment and lengthy waiting times. SmarTest is helping to break down these barriers, so that patients have greater control over monitoring their condition, and clinicians remain informed and connected. 

 Look out for the next blog in this series to learn more the real-time, lab-comparable results underpinning remote IBD monitoring. 

 Discover the benefits of the SmarTest Calprotectin Home test for your patients. 

References 

1.  IBD UK. Crohn’s and Colitis Care in the UK The Hidden Cost and a Vision for Change. Accessed 10th of July 2026. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/sr-crohns-craft/documents/CROJ8096-IBD-National-Report-WEB-210427-2.pdf