scholarly journals Regulatory Sandboxes: A Cure for mHealth Pilotitis? (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhishek Bhatia ◽  
Rahul Matthan ◽  
Tarun Khanna ◽  
Satchit Balsari

UNSTRUCTURED Mobile health (mHealth) and related digital health interventions in the past decade have not always scaled globally as anticipated earlier despite large investments by governments and philanthropic foundations. The implementation of digital health tools has suffered from 2 limitations: (1) the interventions commonly ignore the “law of amplification” that states that technology is most likely to succeed when it seeks to augment and not alter human behavior; and (2) end-user needs and clinical gaps are often poorly understood while designing solutions, contributing to a substantial decrease in usage, referred to as the “law of attrition” in eHealth. The COVID-19 pandemic has addressed the first of the 2 problems—technology solutions, such as telemedicine, that were struggling to find traction are now closely aligned with health-seeking behavior. The second problem (poorly designed solutions) persists, as demonstrated by a plethora of poorly designed epidemic prediction tools and digital contact-tracing apps, which were deployed at scale, around the world, with little validation. The pandemic has accelerated the Indian state’s desire to build the nation’s digital health ecosystem. We call for the inclusion of regulatory sandboxes, as successfully done in the fintech sector, to provide a real-world testing environment for mHealth solutions before deploying them at scale.

10.2196/21276 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. e21276
Author(s):  
Abhishek Bhatia ◽  
Rahul Matthan ◽  
Tarun Khanna ◽  
Satchit Balsari

Mobile health (mHealth) and related digital health interventions in the past decade have not always scaled globally as anticipated earlier despite large investments by governments and philanthropic foundations. The implementation of digital health tools has suffered from 2 limitations: (1) the interventions commonly ignore the “law of amplification” that states that technology is most likely to succeed when it seeks to augment and not alter human behavior; and (2) end-user needs and clinical gaps are often poorly understood while designing solutions, contributing to a substantial decrease in usage, referred to as the “law of attrition” in eHealth. The COVID-19 pandemic has addressed the first of the 2 problems—technology solutions, such as telemedicine, that were struggling to find traction are now closely aligned with health-seeking behavior. The second problem (poorly designed solutions) persists, as demonstrated by a plethora of poorly designed epidemic prediction tools and digital contact-tracing apps, which were deployed at scale, around the world, with little validation. The pandemic has accelerated the Indian state’s desire to build the nation’s digital health ecosystem. We call for the inclusion of regulatory sandboxes, as successfully done in the fintech sector, to provide a real-world testing environment for mHealth solutions before deploying them at scale.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amani Abu-Shaheen ◽  
Isamme AlFayyad ◽  
Muhammad Riaz ◽  
Abdullah Nofal ◽  
Abdulrahman AlMatary ◽  
...  

Introduction. The majority of neonatal deaths in developing countries occur at home. Many of these deaths are related to late recognition of the signs of a serious illness by parents and a delay in the decision to seek medical care. Since the health-seeking behavior of mothers for neonatal care depends on the mothers' knowledge about WHO recognized danger signs, it is essential to investigate their knowledge of these signs. Objective. To investigate the knowledge and the experience of mothers and caregivers towards the WHO suggested neonatal danger signs. Methods. A community-based study was conducted on mothers who had delivered or had nursed a baby in the past two years. Results. A total of 1428 women were included in the analysis. Only 37% of the participant's knowledge covered three or more danger signs. The frequently reported participants’ knowledge of danger signs in this study was for yellow soles (48.0%), not feeding since birth or stopping to feed (46.0%), and signs of local infection (37.0%). The majority (69.0%) of the participants had experienced at least one of the danger signs with their baby. The noteworthy frequent reports of the participants’ experiences were for yellow soles (27.0%), not feeding since birth or stopping to feed (25.0%), and umbilical complications (19.0%). Conclusion. The proportion of mothers with knowledge of at least three neonatal danger signs is low. There is a need for developing interventions to increase a mother’s knowledge of newborns danger signs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuewen Dang ◽  
Guanyang Zou ◽  
Boli Peng ◽  
Li Ling

Objective. This study aims to understand the health service seeking behavior of migrant workers and explore its association with their living status (i.e., living with family members or not), in Guangdong, China. Methods. This was a cross-sectional survey conducted with 912 migrant workers in 2012 using a structured questionnaire adapted from the National Health Service Survey. Data were analyzed using the multivariable logistic regression. Results. Of all migrant workers, 58% lived with at least one family member in the host city. Most of the respondents rated their health status being “very good or good” (58%). Fifty-four percent of the respondents reported having at least one disease in the past 12 months. Sixty-two percent of those who reported at least one disease visited doctors in the past 12 months. Of these, 22% returned to their hometown for medical treatment. Logistic regression showed that migrant workers living with families rated themselves as having better health status (P<0.05) but had more diseases (P>0.05) and had higher doctor visitation rate than those living with alone (58% vs. 66%, P<0.05). Conclusion. The Andersen health service utilization model helps to understand the health seeking behavior of the migrant workers in the host cities. Migrant workers living with family members were positively associated with self-rated health status and health service seeking behavior in small and medium-sized enterprises. Our findings suggest the importance of the assistance programs and social support to improve seeking of healthcare services among migrant groups, especially those who live alone in the host cities.


2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Edwards
Keyword(s):  

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