01 · Team · editorial · safety
Cloud architect by day, IBS-diary builder by evening — built in Munich, with no venture money and no diagnostic claims.
02 · Who builds this
My day job is cloud infrastructure at Oracle. I spend it thinking about data that should not end up in someone else's hands. DarmKompass follows the same logic: hosting in the EU, no trackers, no sale of data. Whatever you log belongs to you — exportable as JSON whenever you ask, no questions.
Two tools were missing: a paper diary is no use in the consulting room, and DiGA apps start with therapy before you even know your own patterns. Something calm should sit between them — a diary that runs along in 30 seconds, surfaces correlations in minutes, and prints a doctor-ready report after three clicks.
DarmKompass is solo-founder work under the roof of clearTime GmbH. No VC funding, no exit plan. If you write me an email, I reply — usually the same business day.
“This is a tool, not a companion. Its job is not to comfort you — it is to help you read your own patterns before you sit down in front of a gastroenterologist.”Michael Prechtel · Founder
I am not a physician. Clinical content is cross-read — the line is documented below.
03 · Editorial · sources · review
A diary app, not a medical device, not a DiGA — the knowledge articles are still treated with clinical care. They are read by people with real symptoms.
Every article is anchored in the German DGVS S3 guideline on irritable bowel syndrome (AWMF 021/016, 2021 update), the Rome IV criteria, and peer-reviewed PubMed literature. If a dosage, a trigger claim, or a tool has no traceable source, it does not make it into the article.
Content goes through the clearTime editorial advisory: plausibility, source fidelity, safe language, red flags. As long as an article has not been clinically cross-read, it reads „editorially reviewed“ — not „physician-reviewed“.
External review by board-certified gastroenterologists is currently in onboarding. Once the process is in place, every clinical article ships with a reviewer name — specialty, license region, profile link.
Every clinical article carries the same block at the top: blood in stool, black stool, unexplained weight loss, fever, severe persistent pain → see a doctor, do not journal these. That block sits at the top, deliberately.
04 · What we anchor to
We do not publish in-house studies and do not make clinical claims. We cross-read against sources — verifiable, named, with publication date.
AWMF 021/016, 2021 update. German Society for Gastroenterology. The authoritative German reference.
International standard for functional gastrointestinal disorders. Published 2016, widely adopted.
Linked at the article foot with date and version number. We don't assume it — we quote it.
For English-language content a second anchor next to DGVS — recommendations are reconciled.
Individual claims link to PubMed identifiers or DOIs. No pre-prints, no press releases.
IBS in the official classification. Our diary structure follows the clinical coding.
05 · Where DarmKompass stops
DarmKompass is a diary and pattern-recognition app. Not a medical device under EU MDR 2017/745, not a DiGA under German § 33a SGB V, not telemedicine, not a diagnostic tool. We do not diagnose, do not give individual treatment advice, and do not replace the consulting room.
What we provide: a private logbook that surfaces your own patterns, plus knowledge articles without hype. If your data or your symptoms call for a decision, that decision belongs in a clinician's hands — not in an app.
Please see a doctor — do not journal these
06 · Operator · legal · reach
The DarmKompass platform is operated by clearTime GmbH — a Munich-registered GmbH, run since 2017. Full Impressum and Privacy are linked separately.
Contact
A short email is enough. No auto-reply, no onboarding sequence — you get a real reply, usually within one business day. For data-protection questions, write to [email protected] directly.