We’ve all seen those apps that track what you eat or how much exercise you’re getting - losing weight is a topic of interest for so many that there are lots of those to be found. But when it comes to tracking for the purpose of learning how to better manage chronic illness, does the same motivation apply?

Wellapps® GI Monitor for tracking symptoms associated with Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis is one app that hopes so. It’s available for free for iPhone, Android, and blackberry devices, and there’s an online version at WellApps.com. The idea is that tracking factors related to disease management will enable knowledge about the correlation between symptoms, triggers, and active and allow for behavior changes that can help.

The WellApps® website provides a great overview of how to use the app, narrated by Brett Shamosh, co-founder and CEO WellApps®. An empowered patient himself, Brett was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age 16 and went on to develop the app in 2009 after a flare of the disease.

The interface is easy to navigate and it’s equally easy to enter data. You can log factors, such as symptoms or pain at the time they occur, or use the set time feature to log a factor after the fact. The app also lets you enter custom data, such as foods and symptoms, and to add notes.

The data that you log can then be displayed as a simple graph in your online chart, allowing you to see the association between factors, such as a relationship between certain foods, and a higher level of pain the next day.

The app itself provides a daily “quality of life” indicator in the form of 1 to 10 rating called “My Status”. You can review a report of the data which makes up the status score, and print a version of the report from your online account. You can even email the report to your physician directly from your phone. From the website: “The data collected is compiled into easy-to-read reports for physicians, resulting in optimal patient treatment and reduced periods of active disease.”

Physicians who are WellApps® subscribers can go further - to enroll patients and monitor their data in real time. Talk about connected health! In this case, everyone is learning how to better manage the disease, with the patient squarely at the center of the process.

And it doesn’t stop there. WellApps® is driven by an even greater purpose - to improve the treatments for Crohn’s and Colitis. For this reason, while GI Monitor is free for patients, it does require agreement to register and permission to anonymously share data about symptoms. Seems like a small price to pay. With his co-founders, Edward Shin, MD and Paolo Teodorani, CTO, WellApps® is a fine model of participatory medicine at work.

Brett also reports on his own battle with the disease as well as other news and updates in health, technology, and innovation on the WellApps® blog which is listed under the heading of Latest News and Updates. For the latest on his personal story, read his recent post called “My Uninformed Life Changing Decision.”

To meet him and learn more about WellApps® join us at e-Patient Connections, September 20-21 in Philadelphia, Pa.