On February 6, The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation launched the We Can’t Wait app, which provides an interactive map that allows users to find a restroom near them across the US.  Driven by crowdsourced submissions and major retail and restaurant partners that contributed their restroom location data, the app empowers inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients – and all users – with a tool to find restrooms more easily, both in emergency and everyday situations.

Everyone has experienced the challenge of being away from home and needing to use a restroom, but for some people, like IBD patients, quick restroom access is a medical necessity. Many IBD patients experience urgent bowel movements, which can happen unexpectedly at anytime, anywhere.  If a restroom isn’t immediately available (or if they are turned away by a business), patients may face debilitating pain, extreme anxiety, and even traumatic bowel accidents. 

The We Can’t Wait app is the centerpiece of the foundation’s Open Restrooms Movement. In partnership with healthcare advocacy organizations, the organization is calling on stakeholders in the public and private sectors to recognize the issue of restroom access as a basic human need and permit public access to restrooms wherever possible. Businesses and governments can help solve this critical scarcity of public restrooms with a simple act of human kindness: opening their restrooms.

App users simply navigate the on-screen map to find a restroom close to their location; they can also submit locations to be added to the map. To kickstart the app’s launch and ensure more businesses will be genuinely welcoming to patients, the foundation is partnering with major US retailers and restaurants, including the Home Depot and Just Salad, among others.  With more than 3,000 partner locations at launch (45,000 total), the foundation is actively adding restrooms through partnerships and crowdsourcing.

To download the app, click here

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