Medical Specialties
Help Patients Navigate Gastrointestinal & Digestive Health.
Digestive symptoms can affect meals, work and the confidence to leave home.
PATHS helps healthcare organizations turn clinical expertise into actionable patient journeys, giving patients and caregivers clear guidance while providing care teams with visibility into engagement, understanding, and progress.
Digestive Care Has to Fit Life Beyond the Clinic.
Digestive symptoms can affect meals, work and the confidence to leave home. Patients need a clear understanding of their diagnosis and a way to discuss changes without losing the thread of their care.
43.4M1
Annual U.S. ambulatory visits with a primary GI diagnosis in a national burden study
3.8M+1
Annual admissions with a principal GI diagnosis in the same study
$119.6B1
U.S. gastrointestinal healthcare expenditures in 2018
The Problem
A national U.S. analysis reported 43.4 million ambulatory visits with a primary gastrointestinal diagnosis annually. Digestive care covers many conditions, and a plan for one diagnosis cannot simply be reused for every patient.1
When Symptoms Keep Disrupting Life
The national analysis found more than 3.8 million admissions for a principal GI diagnosis and $119.6 billion in GI healthcare expenditures in 2018. These are broad burden figures, not a measure of costs that patient education can prevent.1
What Better Support Can Do
In the U.K. ACTIB trial, supported telephone and web-based cognitive behavioral therapy improved symptoms and work and social functioning in adults with refractory IBS at 12 months. This is evidence for a specific therapy in IBS, not for web education alone or every digestive condition.2
Sources
- 1.Peery AF, et al. Burden and Cost of Gastrointestinal, Liver, and Pancreatic Diseases in the United States: Update 2021. Gastroenterology 2022;162:621–644. PMID 34678215.
- 2.Everitt HA, et al. Assessing telephone-delivered CBT and web-delivered CBT versus treatment as usual in irritable bowel syndrome (ACTIB). Gut, 2019; 558 adults.
Healthcare teams have a critical responsibility to educate and prepare patients for that journey. But once patients leave the clinical setting, how do we know they're ready?
Do they understand their care plan? Can they apply what they've learned? Are they following through? Where do they need additional support?
Preparing patients for the journey is essential. Knowing how they're managing it creates the opportunity to improve care.
Gastrointestinal & Digestive Health: From Clinical Expertise to Actionable Guidance.
Understand
Education and knowledge
Explain the person's condition and the investigations or care options their team recommends.
Take Action
Tasks, decisions, follow-through
Help patients organize questions about symptoms and prepare for their next clinical conversation.
Manage Care
Medications, appointments, self-care
Connect the team's guidance on daily routines, treatments and follow-up in one journey.
Demonstrate
Assessments and engagement evidence
Use questions to see what patients understand and where additional explanation would help.
Meet Grace.A Clearer Plan for Living With IBS.
Follow Grace through an illustrative seven-Step Path. A hospital could use this structure to share education its digestive health team selects, help patients prepare useful notes for visits and make warning signs easy to recognize.
Understanding My IBS Diagnosis Path
Illustrative person (AI-generated). Illustrative educational Path. Completion does not establish a clinical outcome.
Read the Path Steps
- Video: Understand IBS
What IBS is, how the gut and brain work together, and why IBS does not damage the digestive tract.
- Form: Prepare symptom notes
Grace notes symptoms, meals, stress and sleep to share at her next visit.
- Audio: Explore food changes
Eating changes her team may suggest, such as more fiber or a dietitian-guided low FODMAP plan.
- Video: Calm the gut-brain link
Relaxation, cognitive behavioral therapy and gut-directed hypnotherapy, options her team may recommend.
- Document: Plan for flare days
Her team’s plan for flare days: what to eat, rest and activity, her medicine instructions and when to call.
- Quiz: Know the warning signs
Practice which symptoms are not typical of IBS and need a call to her team, such as bleeding, black or bloody stools, weight loss, or anemia found on a blood test.
- Link: Prepare for follow-up
Her follow-up visit details and how to bring her symptom notes.
Every Workflow Should Save the Health System Time and Money.
Assign a value to the Understanding My IBS Diagnosis Path and see the results.
Path Value Estimation
minutes
per year
How many times your team already does this workflow each year.
per hour
65.5staff hours saved per year
$2,291estimated value per year
Change the assumptions above to see your estimate of time and money saved.
CREATE
The care team builds a Understanding My IBS Diagnosis Path once.
Gastroenterology clinicians turn the education they repeat with every newly diagnosed patient into a structured Path and assign it a value of 21 minutes of staff education time saved per patient.
ENGAGE
Patients like Grace learn and act.
Each year, 187 patients like Grace learn about a new IBS diagnosis with the Understanding My IBS Diagnosis Path, saving 21 minutes of education time each.
KNOW
Data shows the impact.
That adds up to 3,927 minutes (65.5 hours) of staff time, worth an estimated $2,291 a year at $35.00 an hour.
IMPROVE
Insights improve the next Path.
Engagement, knowledge checks and questions show where IBS education was clear or confusing, so the care team can refine it for the next patient.
Every Gastrointestinal & Digestive Health Journey Creates an Opportunity to Improve the Next.
Estimates are illustrative and use the assumptions above. They are not measured results.
Grace's Experience Becomes Health System Intelligence.
Grace's care doesn't stop at one Path. As she works toward a clearer plan, the clinic provides a Path for each part of it: understanding IBS, her symptom questions, food and daily life, treatment, and coping. Each Path Grace completes also shows her care team what she engaged with, what she understood and what she still had questions about.
Food and Daily Life Path
Grace can return to the dietary guidance her team shared whenever she needs it. The topics patients revisit most show where the guidance can be clearer.
Treatment Discussion Path
Grace prepares questions about her treatment options. The questions patients bring show the team which parts of treatment education need work.
Between-Visit Reflection Path
Grace organizes her observations for her next consultation. That helps the team focus the visit on what is still unclear.
The more the health system knows about each patient's experience and journey, the better it can make its workflows. What Grace and every other patient engage with, understand and ask about becomes health system intelligence: the team learns from every patient and refines each Path, so the next patient's experience is better. Clearer Paths mean fewer repeat calls and less time re-teaching the same education, and that saves time and money across the health system.
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Start With One Journey. Learn From Every Experience.
Improving digestive health care doesn't require changing every workflow at once.
Start with a patient journey that matters to your organization. Build a structured approach, understand how patients and caregivers engage, and use what you learn to improve the experience.