scholarly journals Users perceived contribution and usability of mobile health applications and connected objects: patients and health care providers perspectives from an exploratory survey (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Saussier ◽  
Frédéric Faurennes ◽  
Hubert Méchin ◽  
Laurent Mignon ◽  
Solène Ponthieu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
Connected Health ◽  
Health Applications

BACKGROUND Technology is nowadays omnipresent. Using New Information and Communications Technologies in the health sector is promising and intended to be beneficial, both for patient disease prevention and care. The Lab e-Santé, a French think tank, aims to further advance knowledge of the use and practices of digital health tools, identify obstacles in their use, and issue recommendations. OBJECTIVE The Lab e-Santé conducted an exploratory study in order to get preliminary data regarding the appropriation, satisfaction and global use in real life of health applications and connected objects. This initial survey would allow to explore, within MHCs (Multidisciplinary health centers), the usability and the perceived contribution of the tools from both HCPs and patients’ viewpoints and provide preliminary inputs regarding the barriers and the drivers of connected health. METHODS The Lab e-santé recruited a total of 10 facilities from the exhaustive database of French MHCs. HCPs from those MHC were provided with iPads on which the m-health application was installed. They were also provided with three types of connected devices: weighting scales, blood pressure monitors and activity trackers. VirtualSanté and VirtualSanté Pro applications were especially developed for the survey. VirtualSanté allowed to compile all the patient’s data collected from a connected health device, and share these data with the health professional in their dedicated professional application, VirtualSanté Pro. During a 5-month period, participating health professionals were instructed to include patients with chronic diseases, aged 18 years and above, who agreed to participate. RESULTS This exploratory study addressed the perceived contribution and usability of health technologies from both patients and their HCPs. Our findings as described below suggest that there is a dichotomy between HCPs and patients’ perception about connected health usefulness. HCPs are more confident in a potential contribution of connected health for their patients than the patients themselves. Patients didn’t express any benefit 6 months later and the device became a source of anxiety for some of them. One possible explanation may be the multiple technical issues users faced during the survey including the installation of the applications on non-compatible devices, the initial connection between the object and the application or technical bugs during use. For the same reasons, HCPs found it time-consuming and difficult to integrate in their everyday practice. CONCLUSIONS Today many people are optimistic about the concept of mHealth. However, to use these devices and have high acceptance, both HCPs and patients need to be aware of the existence and usefulness of applications and connected objects then trust them. Tools should be personalized and adaptive, as far as possible, or at least be adapted to the good user profile. The latter should be motivated, properly trained, educated and supported for assuring an appropriate, useful and sustainable use.

scholarly journals Patient connectivity with healthcare professionals and health insurer using digital health technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic: a German cross-sectional study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Hannemann ◽  
Nina-Alexandra Götz ◽  
Lisa Schmidt ◽  
Ursula Hübner ◽  
Birgit Babitsch
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Data Transmission ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Health Insurance Company ◽  
Insurance Company ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Health Technologies

Abstract Background Digital health technologies enable patients to make a personal contribution to the improvement of their health by enabling them to manage their health. In order to exploit the potential of digital health technologies, Internet-based networking between patients and health care providers is required. However, this networking and access to digital health technologies are less prevalent in sociodemographically deprived cohorts. The paper explores how the use of digital health technologies, which connect patients with health care providers and health insurers has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The data from a German-based cross-sectional online study conducted between April 29 and May 8, 2020, were used for this purpose. A total of 1.570 participants were included in the study. Accordingly, the influence of sociodemographic determinants, subjective perceptions, and personal competencies will affect the use of online booking of medical appointments and medications, video consultations with providers, and the data transmission to health insurers via an app. Results The highest level of education (OR 1.806) and the presence of a chronic illness (OR 1.706) particularly increased the likelihood of using online booking. With regard to data transmission via an app to a health insurance company, the strongest increase in the probability of use was shown by belonging to the highest subjective social status (OR 1.757) and generation Y (OR 2.303). Furthermore, the results show that the higher the subjectively perceived restriction of the subjects' life situation was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the higher the relative probability of using online booking (OR 1.103) as well as data transmission via an app to a health insurance company (OR 1.113). In addition, higher digital literacy contributes to the use of online booking (OR 1.033) and data transmission via an app to the health insurer (OR 1.034). Conclusions Socially determined differences can be identified for the likelihood of using digital technologies in health care, which persist even under restrictive conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the results indicate a digital divide with regard to the technologies investigated in this study.

scholarly journals Mobile and Connected Health Technology Needs for Older Adults Aging in Place: Cross-Sectional Survey Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Wang ◽  
Yan Du ◽  
Deidra Coleman ◽  
Michelle Peck ◽  
Sahiti Myneni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
Connected Health ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Health Communities

BACKGROUND An increasing number of mobile and wearable devices are available in the market. However, the extent to which these devices can be used to assist older adults to age in place remains unclear. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess older adults’ perceptions of using mobile and connected health technologies. METHODS Using a cross-sectional design, a total of 51 participants were recruited from a senior community center. Demographics and usage of mobile or wearable devices and online health communities were collected using a survey questionnaire. Descriptive statistics assessed usage of devices and online health communities. The Fisher exact test was used to examine the relationship between technology usage and having access to a smartphone. RESULTS The sample was primarily comprised non-Hispanic white (35/51, 69%), educated (39/51, 76% any college), and female (36/51, 71%) participants, with an average age of 70 (SD 8) years. All participants were insured and nearly all lived at home (49/51, 94%). A total of 86% (44/51) of the participants had heard of wearable health devices, but only 18 out of 51 (35%) had ever used them. Over 80% (42/51) expressed interest in using such devices and were interested in tracking exercise and physical activity (46/51, 90%), sleep (38/51, 75%), blood pressure (34/51, 67%), diet (31/51, 61%), blood sugar (28/51, 55%), weight (26/51, 51%), and fall risk (23/51, 45%). The greatest concerns about using wearable devices were cost (31/51, 61%), safety (14/51, 28%), and privacy (13/51, 26%); one-fourth (12/51) reported having no concerns. They were mostly interested in sharing data from mobile and connected devices with their health care providers followed by family, online communities, friends, and no one. About 41% (21/51) of the older adults surveyed reported having ever heard of an online health community, and roughly 40% (20/51) of the participants reported being interested in joining such a community. Most participants reported having access to a smartphone (38/51, 74%), and those with such access were significantly more likely to show interest in using a wearable health device (P<.001) and joining an online health community (P=.05). CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that, although few older adults are currently using mobile and wearable devices and connected health technologies for managing health, they are open to this idea and are mostly interested in sharing such data with their health care providers. Further studies are warranted to explore strategies to balance the data sharing preference of older adults and how to best integrate mobile and wearable device data with clinical workflow for health care providers to promote healthy aging in place.

scholarly journals Digital Health for Patients With Multiple Myeloma: An Unmet Need

2021 ◽  
pp. 1096-1105
Author(s):  
Sundar Jagannath ◽  
Joseph Mikhael ◽  
Omar Nadeem ◽  
Noopur Raje
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Multiple Myeloma ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trials ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Patient Journey ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
Patient Reported

Multiple myeloma (MM) is associated with the highest symptom burden and lowest health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among patients with hematologic malignancies. HRQoL in MM is heterogeneous, varying over the course of disease, with the highest burden at diagnosis and relapse. Patients with MM are increasingly being treated with oral maintenance medications at home. As a result, longitudinal monitoring of medication adherence and patient-reported outcomes, including HRQoL, could inform on disease status, therapeutic tolerability, and satisfaction with care. Digital health technologies, including telemedicine, mobile health, and wearable devices, are poised to become an integral part of modern health care, in part due to the surge in telemedicine necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the literature has many reports on the use of digital health technologies in other types of cancers, fewer studies report on their application to MM. In the current narrative review, we survey the applications of digital health for MM. Although there is evidence that some are associated with improved health outcomes, challenges exist that must be met to ensure more widespread adoption. These include the need for increased awareness by patients and health care providers, lack of access by the typical older patient with MM, absence of randomized clinical trials, and low integration with current workflows such as electronic health records. Following our summary of technologies that could benefit patients with MM, we end by describing our vision for how they can be integrated into each phase of the patient journey.

Engagement patterns of users and providers: a study of messaging on app usage in a smartphone app for the treatment of eating disorders (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Kim ◽  
Jisung Park ◽  
Jenna Tregarthen
Keyword(s):  
Eating Disorders ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Digital Tool ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Multiple Phenotypes ◽  
Monitoring Tools ◽  
Level Data

BACKGROUND By offering the ability to immediately communicate with health care providers, digital health apps may significantly bolster the therapeutic relationship. Increasing opportunities of engagement with a digital tool, self-monitoring tools show confer promise in allowing patients to go through periods in between in-clinic visits. Little is known however, regarding the usage of the apps and whether communication between providers and app users in fact encourages usage. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to investigate the users of an app for eating disorders and summarize the characteristics of usage, characteristics of communication (i.e. messages sent and received), and assess whether the degree of communication and the degree of app usage (of the main features of the app precluding provider contact) were related. METHODS Users of an app for eating disorders (Tregarthen et al) consented for their de-identified, aggregate level data to be utilized for research. Records of five hundred users were randomly sampled from May 2017 to July 2017. All users in the sampled cohort were linked to a clinician. Raw data included 97,732 observations of meal logs submitted via app across 500 individuals. RESULTS Our data demonstrated a high degree of variability across users in their engagement patterns of the app. Receiving more messages on average had a greater effect on usage than sending messages, implying that being checked in on by clinicians may encourage users to engage more with their app. Data also demonstrated that there were multiple phenotypes in terms of preferences regarding communication – while a portion of users seemed to benefit, a large minority did not demonstrate a change in usage based on the frequency of communication. CONCLUSIONS Understanding usage phenotypes can be instrumental in helping clinician and apps understand who their user is. This work demonstrates that variability among the user population in terms of usage and communication styles, as well as usage and behavior. This information can ultimately be leveraged for guiding effective treatment delivery.

Digital Health Engagement in the US Population: Insights From the 2018 Health Information National Trends Survey

2021 ◽  
pp. e1-e4
Author(s):  
Chelsea L. Ratcliff ◽  
Melinda Krakow ◽  
Alexandra Greenberg-Worisek ◽  
Bradford W. Hesse
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Smart Device ◽  
P Value ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Trends

Objectives. To examine prevalence and predictors of digital health engagement among the US population. Methods. We analyzed nationally representative cross-sectional data on 7 digital health engagement behaviors, as well as demographic and socioeconomic predictors, from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 5, cycle 2, collected in 2018; n = 2698–3504). We fitted multivariable logistic regression models using weighted survey responses to generate population estimates. Results. Digitally seeking health information (70.14%) was relatively common, whereas using health apps (39.53%) and using a digital device to track health metrics (35.37%) or health goal progress (38.99%) were less common. Digitally communicating with one’s health care providers (35.58%) was moderate, whereas sharing health data with providers (17.20%) and sharing health information on social media (14.02%) were uncommon. Being female, younger than 65 years, a college graduate, and a smart device owner positively predicted several digital health engagement behaviors (odds ratio range = 0.09–4.21; P value range < .001–.03). Conclusions. Many public health goals depend on a digitally engaged populace. These data highlight potential barriers to 7 key digital engagement behaviors that could be targeted for intervention. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print May 20, 2021: e1–e4. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306282 )

Using ePROMs for follow-up after palliative radiotherapy: an exploratory study with patients and health care providers.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Oldenburger ◽  
Inge Neyens ◽  
Annemarie Coolbrandt ◽  
Sofie Isebaert ◽  
Aline Sevenants ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Palliative Radiotherapy ◽  
Care Providers

scholarly journals Development of a tool to assess health applications for healthcare providers: A Delphi Expert Panel Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Immaculada Grau-Corral ◽  
Percy Efran Pantoja ◽  
Francisco J. Grajales III ◽  
Belchin Kostov ◽  
Valentí Aragunde ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Expert Panel ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Health Apps ◽  
Agreement Assessment ◽  
Health Applications

BACKGROUND The presence of the mobile phone and devices is generating knowledge about the use of applications to support patient care, but there are few recommendations for apps dedicated to healthcare professionals OBJECTIVE To establish a validated scale to assess healthcare mobile applications is the most efficient step for health care providers and systems. The main goal is to create and validate a tool to evaluate health apps destined to be used by health professionals. METHODS A five steps simplified methodology to assess of the scale was followed. The first step consists of building a scale for professionals based on a literature review. Next step would be an expert panel validation by a Delphi method, rating web-based questionnaires to evaluate inclusion and weight of the indicators. It was agreed to carry out, as many iterations as necessary, to reach a consensus of 75%. Finally, a pilot of the score was developed to evaluate the reliability of the scale. For the inter-rater agreement assessment during the pilot, the Cohen Kappa was used. RESULTS After the literature review, a first scale draft was developed. Two rounds of interactions of the local investigation group and the external panel of experts were needed to select final indicators. Seventeen indicators were included in the score. For the pilot test, 280 apps were evaluated and 66 meet the criteria. The interrater agreement was strong (higher than 82% with significant kappa >0.72 per app and item). CONCLUSIONS We have developed, with a reproducible methodology, a tool that allows us to evaluate health applications for clinical, surgical and general medical providers. The ISYScore-PRO scale to be reliable and reproducible. The assessment permitted to consolidate every step of the methodology. We were able to reach consensus on the dimensions and items on the scale with only two rounds. The process of validation included two robust methodologies. The ISYScore-PRO scale is reliable and reproducible.

The Partners HealthCare Settlement and the Future of Health Care Organizations

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Unique Challenge ◽  
Delivery Models

AbstractA recent settlement between Massachusetts and Partners HealthCare, along with successful antitrust actions by the Federal Trade Commission, may signal the beginning of the end of two decades of consolidation of health care providers. This consolidation has been associated with higher prices resulting from market power, justifying the antitrust actions. However, the appropriate remedy for the health sector is a unique challenge. The proposed settlement appears to lock into place the legacy of the hospital-based delivery model, rather than orchestrating a pathway to a new care delivery models. Clearly, we need a regulatory framework that will introduce innovative alternatives into the market, not enshrine the current costly paradigm.

scholarly journals Realities of conducting digital health research: Challenges to consider

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 205520761986946
Author(s):  
Emily de Redon ◽  
Amanda Centi
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Barriers To Implementation ◽  
Smart Health ◽  
Health Applications

The health sector has been slow to adopt and integrate new technological advances into antiquated workflows and processes. The onset of smart health applications and devices has initiated a push for healthcare systems as well as physicians to incorporate and utilize such technology and the big data it collects. However, without considering the challenges experienced in large-scale trials, physicians and their clinics will run into similar barriers to implementation and uptake. Thoughtful implementation and preparation will make the use of such technological advances possible, palatable and effective in improving clinical care.

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