Access to high-quality mhealth tools for diabetes management is critical. The purpose was to systematically review mobile apps for features relevant to helping emerging adults manage their diabetes as they transition to independent diabetes monitoring. Mobile apps were reviewed for relevance to emerging adults, aged 18-25, living with diabetes. The GooglePlay store was systematically searched to identify diabetes management mobile tools. Of the 29 apps, only one app had any features relevant to emerging adults. In total, 20 apps had a feature to share a copy of diet or blood sugar logs with a family member or provider. Only 9 apps had any interactivity other than tracking. While most apps had graphics, only 5 were deemed high quality. Just one app met all three included Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) criteria. This review serves as a starting point to guide educators and patients, especially to aid continuity of care when in-person support is not feasible. Ongoing review of new apps with improved functionality and effectiveness studies of the apps' impact on emerging adults' diabetes management is imperative.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought changes to the way medical care is delivered to keep health workers safe while simultaneously managing available resources. The well-being of patients and healthcare workers is crucial and has become a topic of debate as the world faces adjusts to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, there is need to consider innovative methods of delivering medical care. Telehealth and digital health care which is the provision of medical care via Information Communication Technology (ICT) with highspeed telecommunications systems, has increasingly becoming popular in providing medical care services can be adopted to reduce infections during quarantine and social distancing practices. Specifically, by means of document and literature review this paper discusses the role of telehealth and digital care solutions, types and application of telehealth, and current policies for COVID-19. More importantly, findings from the article present the human, infrastructure, and institutional determinants that influence the adoption of telehealth and digital care solutions during the pandemic. The findings discuss how telehealth and digital care technologies can benefit the society. This study provides implications to informs medical staffs on the potential of digital technologies to provide support during and after the pandemic.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires that healthcare providers allow patients to engage in their healthcare by allowing access to their health records. Often patients need informal caregivers including family members or others to help them with their care. This paper explores whether trust is a key factor for informal caregivers' decision to use health information technologies (HIT) including electronic health records (EHR), patient portals, mobile apps, or other devices to care for their patient. Six reviewers conducted a comprehensive search of four literature databases using terms that pertained to a caregiver and trust to investigate the role trust plays when caregivers use HIT. While trust is a key factor for the use of HIT, it the researchers only identified ten articles that met the research question thresholds. Four main topics of trust surfaced including perceived confidentiality, perceived security, technological malfunction, and trustworthiness of the information. Trust is a critical factor for informal caregivers when using HIT to assist in the care of their patient (child, loved one, parent, or acquaintance). Based on the findings, it is clear that more research on the use of HIT by caregivers is needed.
This manuscript explores the depression disease management of Black Americans (N = 50) who post their experiences on YouTube. The narratives garnered five themes: (1) personal and national histories as a barrier to treatment and contributor to depression, (2) utilizing the social network as informal counseling and as the catalyst for formal counseling, (3) long-term undiagnosed depression management and mismanagement, (4) advocating to destigmatize and treat depression, and (5) positive experiences initiating and engaging in treatment. Novel findings include how participants discuss narratives in third person, the importance of the Youtube community, and advocacy to destigmatize and treat depression.
The co-design of a mobile health (mHealth) application for family caregivers of people with dementia to address functional disability care needs is presented. Participants included family caregivers of people with dementia, aged care nurses, physicians, occupational therapists, and information technology (IT) experts. The co-design process involved two phases: (1) needs assessment phase (an online survey and in-depth interviews with family caregivers and expert consultation); and (2) development of an mHealth application (content and prototype development). Data triangulation from phase one informed the content of the application. Data triangulation resulted in three content modules: "an overview of dementia and care," "management of daily living activities," and "caregivers' health and well-being." The content was based on contemporary literature, and care guidelines with input from family caregivers and dementia care experts. IT engineers developed the mHealth application. In this study, an Android-based mHealth application was designed to address the functional care needs of family caregivers and the co-design process ensured the incorporation of end-users' real-world experiences and the opinions and expertise of key stakeholders in the development of the application prototype.It is to be noted that before releasing the application into the app store, testing its feasibility and effectiveness is essential.
Accurate identification of transgender persons is a critical first step in conducting transgender health studies. To develop an automated algorithm for identifying transgender individuals from electronic medical records (EMR) using free-text clinical notes. The development and validation of the algorithm was based on data from an integrated healthcare system that served as a participating site in the multicenter Study of Transition Outcomes and Gender. The training and test datasets each contained a total of 300 individuals identified between 2006 and 2014. Both datasets underwent a full medical record review by experienced research abstractors. The validated algorithm was then implemented to identify transgender individuals in the EMR using all clinical notes of patients that received care between January 1, 2015 and June 30, 2018. Validation of the algorithm against the full chart review demonstrated a high degree of accuracy with 97% sensitivity, 95% specificity, 94% positive predictive value, and 97% negative predictive value. The algorithm classified 7,409 individuals (3.5%) as "Definitely transgender" and 679 individuals (0.3%) as "Probably transgender" out of 212,138 candidates with a total of 378,641 clinical notes. The computerized NLP algorithm can support essential efforts to improve the health of transgender people.
This paper describes the software design/development process leading to an improved computerized clinical/management solution-RSIPA (2016 version)-integrating care pathways (CPs) specifically designed to meet the needs of frail and disabled older adults in home care. The development methodology used Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for the initial system design and participatory design (PD) to involve stakeholders and end users, along with AGILE SCRUM methodology to provide rapid iterations in adapting to new requests. Given scarce project resources, we opted to combine methodologies to efficiently deliver a fully functional system for three of the five CP clinical phases. The development methodology aggregated assessment-based data to identify risk factors and assist in needs prioritization leading to care plans and addressed in the current system. The new Quebec RSIPA solution incorporating CCPs is a promising example of technologies that support person-centered care, clinical and management processes, and proactive care in home-care settings.
The expansion of mobile health apps for the management of COVID-19 grew exponentially in recent months. However, no study has evaluated these apps. The objective of this study was to develop a reliable measure and rate the quality of COVID-19 mobile health apps, to eventually provide a roadmap for future mHealth app development. In this study, we used COVID-related keywords to identify apps for iOS and Android devices. 13 apps (13.5% of the total number of apps identified) were selected for evaluation. App quality was assessed independently using MARS by two reviewers. Search queries yielded a total of 97 potentially relevant apps, of which 13 met our final inclusion criteria. Kendall's coefficient of concordance value for the inter-rater agreement was 0.93 (p = .03). COVID-19 GOV PK app had the highest average MARS score (4.7/5), and all of the apps had acceptable MARS scores (> 3.0). This study suggests that most COVID-related apps meet acceptable criteria for quality, content, or functionality, and they must highlight esthetic and interesting features for overall quality improvement to be welcomed by users.
Pregnant women get information about pregnancy andchild-birth from many sources, including the Internet. There is alack of evidence about the extent to which pregnant women usethis source. This study aimed to investigate the use of the Internetby pregnant women to search for information about pregnancyand childbirth. This study was conducted in Kerman, Iran. Threehundred eighty-five pregnant women waiting for their appointmentswith obstetricians/gynecologists participated in the survey byfilling out a questionnaire. The most common searched topicswere nutrition in pregnancy (81%), fetal development (67%), andcomplications of pregnancy (49%). The most popular sources ofinformation were physicians (61%), the Internet (51%), and printedsources (41%), respectively. More than half of the participantsdid not share the retrieved information from the Internet with theirhealth professionals. After being examined by a physician, 43% ofthe participants searched the Internet about the discussed topic.Beside physicians, the Internet is the second common source ofpregnancy and childbirth information for Iranian pregnant women.Future studies are needed to analyze the quality and accuracy ofonline pregnancy and childbirth information.