1,195 research outputs found
Smartphone as a Personal, Pervasive Health Informatics Services Platform: Literature Review
Objectives: The article provides an overview of current trends in personal
sensor, signal and imaging informatics, that are based on emerging mobile
computing and communications technologies enclosed in a smartphone and enabling
the provision of personal, pervasive health informatics services.
Methods: The article reviews examples of these trends from the PubMed and
Google scholar literature search engines, which, by no means claim to be
complete, as the field is evolving and some recent advances may not be
documented yet.
Results: There exist critical technological advances in the surveyed
smartphone technologies, employed in provision and improvement of diagnosis,
acute and chronic treatment and rehabilitation health services, as well as in
education and training of healthcare practitioners. However, the most emerging
trend relates to a routine application of these technologies in a
prevention/wellness sector, helping its users in self-care to stay healthy.
Conclusions: Smartphone-based personal health informatics services exist, but
still have a long way to go to become an everyday, personalized
healthcare-provisioning tool in the medical field and in a clinical practice.
Key main challenge for their widespread adoption involve lack of user
acceptance striving from variable credibility and reliability of applications
and solutions as they a) lack evidence-based approach; b) have low levels of
medical professional involvement in their design and content; c) are provided
in an unreliable way, influencing negatively its usability; and, in some cases,
d) being industry-driven, hence exposing bias in information provided, for
example towards particular types of treatment or intervention procedures
Feasibility of Post-Operative Mobile Health Monitoring Among Colorectal Surgery Patients
Post-operative readmission following colorectal surgery is a common and costly occurrence. Remote health monitoring via mobile applications has the potential to reduce post-operative readmissions by early identification of complications. This intervention depends on patient acceptance and compliance with available technology. The feasibility of home monitoring using automated daily surveys and wound photo uploads, delivered via a mobile health application, was tested in the immediate post-operative period after colorectal surgery. Patient compliance, the association between generated alerts and readmissions, and patient satisfaction were measured. Patient satisfaction was high; 80.5% of patients reported that they felt safer going home knowing that they were monitored and 76.2% of patients reported that they would use the current app for post-operative monitoring again. However, only 37.0% of patients answered the survey at least 80% of the time in the first 2 weeks following discharge. Patient compliance significantly limited the feasibility of post-operative monitoring using our mobile health application
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