Search

Patients and healthcare practitioners have commended the systems' effectiveness, ease, and user-friendliness in several situations. Utilizing cutting-edge ideas and methods from the multidisciplinary domains of electricity, computing, medical engineering, and medicine, mobile healthcare (m-health) technology advances these professions' contributions to healthcare systems. The monitoring and delivery of healthcare interventions are becoming increasingly dependent on mobile phones. Because of their sophisticated processing functions, improved preferences, and wide range of capabilities, they are frequently referred to as pocket computers. Their advanced sensors and intricate software programmers increase the viability and innovation of m-health solutions. To design the m-health application, the design science research methodology (DSRM) framework was used. Additionally, the architecture for connecting the hospital information system and mobile device network together was established. Additionally, a few exemplary intelligent healthcare applications are examined to demonstrate how data analytics and mobile computing can be used to improve the quality of healthcare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic presented unprecedented challenges as communities attempted to respond to the administration of a novel vaccine that faced cold chain logistical requirements and vaccine hesitancy among many, as well as complicated phased rollout plans that changed frequently as availability of the vaccine waxed and waned. The COVID-19 pandemic also disproportionately affected communities of color and communities with barriers to accessing healthcare. In the setting of these difficulties, a program was created specifically to address inequity in vaccine administration with a focus on communities of color and linguistic diversity as well as those who had technological barriers to online sign-up processes common at mass vaccination sites. This effort, the Mobile Vaccine Equity Enhancement Program (MVeeP), delivered over 12,000 vaccines in 24 months through a reproducible set of practices that can inform equity-driven vaccine efforts in future pandemics.

PURPOSE This study aimed to investigate user perceptions regarding the mobile healthcare application of public health centers by using big data. METHODS The study data included 1,089 users’ reviews (from September 27, 2016 to December 23, 2021), which were analyzed using Python, Textom, KrKwic, UCINET 6, and the Net-draw program. RESULTS First, the evaluation of the application showed a higher number of “Good” responses (677 times) compared to “Bad” (329 times) and “Normal” responses (83 times). Second, network structures related to “Good” were “Like,” “Health care,” “Help,” “A sense of purpose,” “Grateful,” “Diet management,” “Exercise management,” “Easy,” “Recommendation,” “Satisfaction,” “Diet,” “Useful,” and so on. Third, network structures related to “Bad” were “Execution error,” “Request improvement,” “Question,” “Slow speed,” “Interlocking error,” “Lack of food type,” “Login error,” “Inconvenience,” “Delete and reinstall,” “Update error,” “Irritation,” “Connection error,” “Problem occurred,” “Direct input request,” “Not available,” “Waste of stars,” “Lack of function,” “Not enough,” “Stuffy,” “Lack of exercise,” and so on. Fourth, as a result of structural equivalence analysis, four clusters appeared: cluster 1 (negative function), cluster 2 (negative emotion), cluster 3 (positive function), and cluster 4 (positive emotion). CONCLUSIONS It is necessary to respond quickly in order to reflect on the users’ reviews, and active efforts are required to improve the program quality so that users can use it conveniently.

Mobile healthcare applications are of significant potential value in the development of the aged-care industry due to their great convenience, high efficiency, and low cost. Since the cognition and utilization rates of mobile healthcare applications for the elderly are still low, this study explored the factors that affect the elderly's adoption of mobile healthcare applications. This study conducted a questionnaire survey on the elderly in China and received 365 valuable responses. This study combined the technology acceptance model, protection motivation theory, and perceived risk theory to build a research model of factors affecting the use of mobile healthcare applications by the elderly. The data were analyzed using a structural equation model. The results were as follows: according to the empirical research, (1) perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use positively affect the use attitude of the elderly; perceived usefulness and user attitude positively affect the behavior intention of the elderly; perceived ease of use positively affects perceived usefulness; (2) perceived severity has a significant positive correlation with use attitude; perceived susceptibility and attitude to use have no significant impact; (3) perceived risk is negatively correlated with the use attitude and behavioral intention. The above-mentioned factors should be taken into consideration during the development of mobile healthcare applications for the aged to upgrade the overall service quality of mobile healthcare applications, thus enhancing the operational level of mobile healthcare applications and the health literacy of the aged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Robust dog vaccination coverage is the primary way to eliminate canine rabies. Haiti conducts annual canine mass vaccination campaigns, but still has the most human deaths in the Latin American and Caribbean region. We conducted an evaluation of dog vaccination methods in Haiti to determine if more intensive, data-driven vaccination methods, using smartphones for data reporting and geo-communication, could increase vaccination coverage to a level capable of disrupting rabies virus transmission.Methods: Two cities were designated into “Traditional” and “Technology-aided” vaccination areas. Traditional areas utilized historical methods of vaccination staff management, whereas Technology-aided areas used smartphone-supported spatial coordination and management of vaccination teams. Smartphones enabled real time two-way geo-communication between campaign managers and vaccinators. Campaign managers provided geographic instruction to vaccinators by assigning mapped daily vaccination boundaries displayed on phone handsets, whilst vaccinators uploaded spatial data of dogs vaccinated for review by the campaign manager to inform assignment of subsequent vaccination zones. The methods were evaluated for vaccination effort, coverage, and cost.Results: A total of 11,420 dogs were vaccinated during the 14-day campaign. The technology-aided approach achieved 80% estimated vaccination coverage as compared to 44% in traditional areas. Daily vaccination rate was higher in Traditional areas (41.7 vaccinations per team-day) compared to in technology-aided areas (26.8) but resulted in significantly lower vaccination coverages. The cost per dog vaccinated increased exponentially with the associated vaccination coverage, with a cost of $1.86 to achieve 25%, $2.51 for 50% coverage, and $3.19 for 70% coverage.Conclusions: Traditional vaccination methods failed to achieve sufficiently high vaccination coverages needed to interrupt sustained rabies virus transmission, whilst the technology-aided approach increased coverage above this critical threshold. Over successive campaigns, this difference is likely to represent the success or failure of the intervention in eliminating the rabies virus. Technology-aided vaccination should be considered in resource limited settings where rabies has not been controlled by Traditional vaccination methods. The use of technology to direct health care workers based on near-real-time spatial data from the field has myriad potential applications in other vaccination and public health initiatives.

The purpose of this study is to empirically verify how UI usability of mobile healthcare applications affects the perception of technostress and continuous use of elderly users. Through this, the effect of UI usability of mobile healthcare applications on technostress and continuous use intention was demonstrated for 199 people aged over 60. As a result, all four sub-factors of UI usability had a significant effect on technostress, and the magnitude of the influence was found to be in the order of content, process, design, and system. On the other hand, it was found that technostress had a significant effect on the intention of continued use. Through the above results, a UI design strategy that can lead to continuous use by relieving the technostress experienced by the elderly was suggested. This provides academic and practical implications for the future development and service direction of mobile healthcare applications for the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing prevalence of smart mobile devices (e.g., smartphones) enables the combined use of mobile crowdsensing (MCS) and ecological momentary assessments (EMA) in the healthcare domain. By correlating qualitative longitudinal and ecologically valid EMA assessment data sets with sensor measurements in mobile apps, new valuable insights about patients (e.g., humans who suffer from chronic diseases) can be gained. However, there are numerous conceptual, architectural and technical, as well as legal challenges when implementing a respective software solution. Therefore, the work at hand (1) identifies these challenges, (2) derives respective recommendations, and (3) proposes a reference architecture for a MCS-EMA-platform addressing the defined recommendations. The required insights to propose the reference architecture were gained in several large-scale mHealth crowdsensing studies running for many years and different healthcare questions. To mention only two examples, we are running crowdsensing studies on questions for the tinnitus chronic disorder or psychological stress. We consider the proposed reference architecture and the identified challenges and recommendations as a contribution in two respects. First, they enable other researchers to align our practical studies with a baseline setting that can satisfy the variously revealed insights. Second, they are a proper basis to better compare data that was gathered using MCS and EMA. In addition, the combined use of MCS and EMA increasingly requires suitable architectures and associated digital solutions for the healthcare domain.

The ubiquity of smart mobile devices facilitates data collection in the healthcare domain. Two of the concepts, which can be applied in this context, are mobile crowdsensing (MCS) and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). TrackYourTinnitus (TYT) is an advanced mobile healthcare platform that combines both concepts enabling the monitoring and evaluation of the users' individual variability of tinnitus symptoms. This paper describes the underlying data set and structure of the TYT mobile platform and highlights selected issues whose investigation provides advanced insights into the users of this mobile platform as well as their data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing prevalence of smart mobile devices (e.g., smartphones) enables the combined use of mobile crowdsensing (MCS) and ecological momentary assessments (EMA) in the healthcare domain. By correlating qualitative longitudinal and ecologically valid EMA assessment data sets with sensor measurements in mobile apps, new valuable insights about patients (e.g., humans who suffer from chronic diseases) can be gained. However, there are numerous conceptual, architectural and technical, as well as legal challenges when implementing a respective software solution. Therefore, the work at hand (1) identifies these challenges, (2) derives respective recommendations, and (3) proposes a reference architecture for a MCS-EMA-platform addressing the defined recommendations. The required insights to propose the reference architecture were gained in several large-scale mHealth crowdsensing studies running for many years and different healthcare questions. To mention only two examples, we are running crowdsensing studies on questions for the tinnitus chronic disorder or psychological stress. We consider the proposed reference architecture and the identified challenges and recommendations as a contribution in two respects. First, they enable other researchers to align our practical studies with a baseline setting that can satisfy the variously revealed insights. Second, they are a proper basis to better compare data that was gathered using MCS and EMA. In addition, the combined use of MCS and EMA increasingly requires suitable architectures and associated digital solutions for the healthcare domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic presented unprecedented challenges as communities attempted to respond to the administration of a novel vaccine that faced cold chain logistical requirements and vaccine hesitancy among many, as well as complicated phased rollout plans that changed frequently as availability of the vaccine waxed and waned. The COVID-19 pandemic also disproportionately affected communities of color and communities with barriers to accessing healthcare. In the setting of these difficulties, a program was created specifically to address inequity in vaccine administration with a focus on communities of color and linguistic diversity as well as those who had technological barriers to online sign-up processes common at mass vaccination sites. This effort, the Mobile Vaccine Equity Enhancement Program (MVeeP), delivered over 12,000 vaccines in 24 months through a reproducible set of practices that can inform equity-driven vaccine efforts in future pandemics., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Broach, Brown, McEachern, Forget, Lancette, Soucie, Inzerillo, Klugman, Tosi, Haddad, Manor, Bylund, Dellostritto, Grecchi, Camelo, Shirshac, Eshghi, Vega, Hampson, Follwell, Gonzalez, Hicks, McCandless, VanStratten, Botros, Jalbert, Merwin, Schellhammer, Pelto, Rodriguez, LaPriore, Lowell, Radigan, Gull, Gruszecki, Benoit, Dickson and Muller.)

This research involves the design and development of a novel Android smartphone application for real-time vital signs monitoring and decision support. The proposed application integrates market available, wireless and Bluetooth connected medical devices for collecting vital signs. The medical device data collected by the app includes heart rate, oxygen saturation and electrocardiograph (ECG). The collated data is streamed/displayed on the smartphone in real-time. This application was designed by adopting six screens approach (6S) mobile development framework and focused on user-centered approach and considered clinicians-as-a-user. The clinical engagement, consultations, feedback and usability of the application in the everyday practices were considered critical from the initial phase of the design and development. Furthermore, the proposed application is capable to deliver rich clinical decision support in real-time using the integrated medical device data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to report on the design of an Android tablet application for data collection by occupational therapists. The design emerged from two design workshops held with users experienced in collecting data on the challenges clients face in using technologies in their daily lives. On the basis of information gathered in the workshops, an Android application was developed for use in clinical and research settings. The aim was to ease the data-collection process and improve data quality by digitizing an existing analogue tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge of this research is to answer the question of what the real need of users regarding the development of a smartphone-based software for healthcare application. This study aimed to develop the non-prescription drugs mobile health application (NMMHA) to support users in the initial medication. The application has been released to evaluate tested its usability and satisfaction. To ensure the NMMHA is going to perform well, a survey has been conducted to collect data about the opinions of two groups of responders (pharmacists and general people). An attitude test and statistical analysis have also been accomplished for both groups to determine the differentiation between the two groups. The impressive results indicate that the group of general peoples tend to use the application more than the group of pharmacists, whereas the overall attitude test results of the two groups are not different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: As smartphone penetration increases and the technology advances, various mobile services have reached the market. mHealth Applications are specifically highlighted for phenomena such as global aging & well-being, but the technology-driven mHealth services have not been successful in the market because consumer needs have not been reflected in the services properly. This study developed a research model consisting of context/contents values to explain the intention of consumers over the age of 40 in using mHealth Applications.Method: To carry out this research, an online survey was conducted of mHealth Application users and recognizers in South Korea who are over 40 years old. 313 respondents gave usable data; those data were analyzed via a structural equation model.Results: Context values (health stress, epistemic) produce an effect on contents values and contents values (convenience, usefulness), excepting reassurance and enjoyment, positively affect the intention to use mHealth Applications. The findings indicate that people who are stressed out about their health and are interested in new ways to control their health think that mHealth Applications are very convenient and useful because people can manage their health at home or at the office, even when they cannot go to a hospital. However, they feel that the current level of service does not provide reassurance. The level of service is behind people's expectations. Hence, a market-oriented approach that can determine user needs, specifically in terms of the reassurance value in the mHealth service field, is needed to develop mHealth Applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Robust dog vaccination coverage is the primary way to eliminate canine rabies. Haiti conducts annual canine mass vaccination campaigns, but still has the most human deaths in the Latin American and Caribbean region. We conducted an evaluation of dog vaccination methods in Haiti to determine if more intensive, data-driven vaccination methods, using smartphones for data reporting and geo-communication, could increase vaccination coverage to a level capable of disrupting rabies virus transmission. Methods: Two cities were designated into "Traditional" and "Technology-aided" vaccination areas. Traditional areas utilized historical methods of vaccination staff management, whereas Technology-aided areas used smartphone-supported spatial coordination and management of vaccination teams. Smartphones enabled real time two-way geo-communication between campaign managers and vaccinators. Campaign managers provided geographic instruction to vaccinators by assigning mapped daily vaccination boundaries displayed on phone handsets, whilst vaccinators uploaded spatial data of dogs vaccinated for review by the campaign manager to inform assignment of subsequent vaccination zones. The methods were evaluated for vaccination effort, coverage, and cost. Results: A total of 11,420 dogs were vaccinated during the 14-day campaign. The technology-aided approach achieved 80% estimated vaccination coverage as compared to 44% in traditional areas. Daily vaccination rate was higher in Traditional areas (41.7 vaccinations per team-day) compared to in technology-aided areas (26.8) but resulted in significantly lower vaccination coverages. The cost per dog vaccinated increased exponentially with the associated vaccination coverage, with a cost of $1.86 to achieve 25%, $2.51 for 50% coverage, and $3.19 for 70% coverage. Conclusions: Traditional vaccination methods failed to achieve sufficiently high vaccination coverages needed to interrupt sustained rabies virus transmission, whilst the technology-aided approach increased coverage above this critical threshold. Over successive campaigns, this difference is likely to represent the success or failure of the intervention in eliminating the rabies virus. Technology-aided vaccination should be considered in resource limited settings where rabies has not been controlled by Traditional vaccination methods. The use of technology to direct health care workers based on near-real-time spatial data from the field has myriad potential applications in other vaccination and public health initiatives., Competing Interests: AG was project lead for the development of the WVS App as a part of employment for Mission Rabies. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Monroe, Ludder, Dilius, Crowdis, Lohr, Cleaton, Gamble, Blanton, Etheart, Pieracci, Natal Vigilato, Molina-Flores, Millien, Gibson and Wallace.)