The Role of mHealth in Improving Health and Medication Management

Mobile health (mHealth) involves the application of mobile devices and their related technologies in the provision of healthcare. In recent years, mHealth has become one of the most promising fields in improving healthcare quality and outcomes. There were over 325,000 mHealth apps in 2017, and this number is expected to grow tremendously due to continued investments in health apps. With advancements in mobile technologies and connectivity, mobile app developers now have the flexibility to develop and implement various mHealth-based interventions for medication management. Through improved functionalities and integration with electronic medical records, mHealth can potentially enable the provision of macro-, meso-, micro- and patient-level interventions in a more efficient manner. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the various mHealth interventions that have targeted medication management and medication non-adherence throughout the years, such as short-messaging services (SMSes) and smartphone apps. The functionalities that are useful in mHealth apps will also be discussed.

With growing numbers of mHealth interventions, there is a need to evaluate the quality of existing apps based on quality assessment criteria that are grounded in published literature and health behavior research. These criteria can help identify the quality of mHealth apps from the perspectives of reliability, feature usefulness and feature convenience. This chapter will discuss the various quality criteria that are relevant for mHealth apps that target drug-related problems, as well as for medication management, through the development of two quality assessment tools. In addition to reliability, usability and privacy criteria, other feature criteria related to tele-monitoring, interaction checkers, dose calculators, medication information provision, medication records, as well as tele-support, tele-collaboration and personalization/contextualization, will be discussed. This chapter aims to provide guidance to mobile app developers, clinicians and patients on the types of quality parameters to consider in apps that are designed for pharmaceutical care and medication management.


Author(s):  
Bitange Ndemo ◽  
Dennis Aiko

Mobile technologies are creating unprecedented changes in Kenya. The ways in which people conduct business have been disrupted, and citizens can access information and services in a more efficient manner. Kenya is also among the leading countries to leverage mobile technology for greater financial inclusivity. This chapter reviews the policy framework that has underpinned Kenya’s digital transformation, as well as the impact and disruptions caused by innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT) that have been introduced as a result. The chapter considers the potentially transformative role of emerging mobile and digital technologies by assessing the favorable economic, organizational, political, social, and cultural environments necessary for their development. It concludes that the development of a progressive policy in a fast-changing technological landscape has catapulted Kenya to the ranks of innovative nations, but that such technology is not a panacea for broader development and governance concerns.


Pharmacy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Amina Abubakar ◽  
Jessica Sinclair

Remote physiologic monitoring (RPM) services involve the transmission of patient-collected physiologic data to the healthcare team. These data are then analyzed to determine what changes may be needed to enhance patient care. While pharmacists may not be recognized as billing providers through some payers, there are opportunities for pharmacist collaboration with providers to enhance patient access to RPM services. Community pharmacist services are traditionally tied to a product, but pharmacists are skilled in medication management, disease state evaluation, and patient counseling, which are skills that can contribute to an elevated RPM program.


Circulation ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 138 (Suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Murray ◽  
Shaun McGovern ◽  
Marion Leary ◽  
Benjamin Abella ◽  
Audrey L Blewer

Introduction: Hands-only CPR training via a video self-instruction (VSI) kit (DVD & manikin) or a mobile application (app, video-only) allows trainees to share the training materials with others (“secondary training”). This secondary training can amplify the number of individuals trained in CPR, thus increasing the chances of bystander intervention in an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Health apps are an emerging tool through which public health information and education can be disseminated. No study has examined whether laypersons trained in CPR via an app share the training as frequently as those trained via VSI. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that laypersons trained via mobile app will share the training material more than those trained with VSI. Methods: This work represents a sub-investigation of an in-hospital CPR training study for families of cardiac patients. Subjects were trained with either a VSI kit or a mobile app and completed an interview 6-month post-training that measured whether training materials were shared and with how many others they were shared. Multivariate logistic regression was performed controlling for age, race and level of education to determine the likelihood that an individual shared the training. Results: Of 697 participants who completed the interview between 6/2016-5/2018, 281 stated they shared the training with at least 1 person (VSI n=213/356, App n=68/341). Subjects who received VSI training were more likely to share than those trained with the app (OR: 7.16, 95% CI: 4.91-10.43, p<0.01). Subjects trained with VSI had an average multiplier rate of 2.27 ±4.13 versus 0.56 ±1.66 (p<0.01) for those trained with the app. Subject-level analysis revealed that increased age is associated with decreased likelihood that an individual shared the training in both training arms (App OR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.96-0.99, VSI OR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.97-0.99). Conclusion: Subjects in the app arm were less likely to share CPR training. While it has been widely assumed that app-based solutions may afford unique dissemination opportunities, these results suggest the most effective solution to increasing hands-only CPR training may lie in kit-based options currently available. Further work is needed to determine why app-based training is shared less.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Morcos ◽  
Jonathan Corns ◽  
Jodie Belinda Hillen

A 70-year-old female aged-care resident was referred by her general practitioner for a residential medication management review after nurses reported difficulties with swallowing, episodes of hyperthermia, elevated blood pressure, and tachycardia. These symptoms were accompanied by increasing confusion and drowsiness. Risperidone had recently been prescribed to treat behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. This case study describes the pharmacist-initiated management of the symptoms through a national medication review program. It demonstrates the valuable role collaborative medication reviews play in managing adverse drug reactions in aged-care.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leming Zhou ◽  
Jie Bao ◽  
I Made Agus Setiawan ◽  
Andi Saptono ◽  
Bambang Parmanto

BACKGROUND After a mobile health (mHealth) app is created, an important step is to evaluate the usability of the app before it is released to the public. There are multiple ways of conducting a usability study, one of which is collecting target users’ feedback with a usability questionnaire. Different groups have used different questionnaires for mHealth app usability evaluation: The commonly used questionnaires are the System Usability Scale (SUS) and Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). However, the SUS and PSSUQ were not designed to evaluate the usability of mHealth apps. Self-written questionnaires are also commonly used for evaluation of mHealth app usability but they have not been validated. OBJECTIVE The goal of this project was to develop and validate a new mHealth app usability questionnaire. METHODS An mHealth app usability questionnaire (MAUQ) was designed by the research team based on a number of existing questionnaires used in previous mobile app usability studies, especially the well-validated questionnaires. MAUQ, SUS, and PSSUQ were then used to evaluate the usability of two mHealth apps: an interactive mHealth app and a standalone mHealth app. The reliability and validity of the new questionnaire were evaluated. The correlation coefficients among MAUQ, SUS, and PSSUQ were calculated. RESULTS In this study, 128 study participants provided responses to the questionnaire statements. Psychometric analysis indicated that the MAUQ has three subscales and their internal consistency reliability is high. The relevant subscales correlated well with the subscales of the PSSUQ. The overall scale also strongly correlated with the PSSUQ and SUS. Four versions of the MAUQ were created in relation to the type of app (interactive or standalone) and target user of the app (patient or provider). A website has been created to make it convenient for mHealth app developers to use this new questionnaire in order to assess the usability of their mHealth apps. CONCLUSIONS The newly created mHealth app usability questionnaire—MAUQ—has the reliability and validity required to assess mHealth app usability.


Author(s):  
Atilla Wohllebe ◽  
Mario Hillmers

The relevance of smartphones and mobile apps has increased significantly in recent years. Increasingly, companies are trying to use mobile apps for their business purposes. Accordingly, the role of app marketing has become more important. Nevertheless, there is no uniform understanding of the term "app marketing". Based on scientific and gray literature, two definitions of "app marketing" are developed. In the narrower sense, app marketing refers to measures aimed at making a mobile app better known and acquiring users i. e. generating app downloads. In the broader sense, app marketing refers to all activities that are used to acquire users for a mobile app, contact them, and encourage them to reach a specified goal. Additionally, based on job ads, an overview of activities in app marketing is provided from a practical point of view. Here, the focus is primarily on paid app install campaigns as well as on monitoring, reporting and analytics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunying Shen ◽  
Bin Jiang ◽  
Qilian Yang ◽  
Chengnan Wang ◽  
Kevin Z Lu ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND As a computerized drug–drug interaction (DDI) alert system has not been widely implemented in China, health care providers are relying on mobile health (mHealth) apps as references for checking drug information, including DDIs. OBJECTIVE The main objective of this study was to evaluate the quality and content of mHealth apps supporting DDI checking in Chinese app stores. METHODS A systematic review was carried out in November 2020 to identify mHealth apps providing DDI checking in both Chinese iOS and Android platforms. We extracted the apps’ general information (including the developer, operating system, costs, release date, size, number of downloads, and average rating), scientific or clinical basis, and accountability, based on a multidimensional framework for evaluation of apps. The quality of mHealth apps was evaluated by using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). Descriptive statistics, including numbers and percentages, were calculated to describe the characteristics of the apps. For each app selected for evaluation, the section-specific MARS scores were calculated by taking the arithmetic mean, while the overall MARS score was described as the arithmetic mean of the section scores. In addition, the Cohen kappa (κ) statistic was used to evaluate the interrater agreement. RESULTS A total of 7 apps met the selection criteria, and only 3 included citations. The average rating score for Android apps was 3.5, with a minimum of 1.0 and a maximum of 4.9, while the average rating score for iOS apps was 4.7, with a minimum of 4.2 and a maximum of 4.9. The mean MARS score was 3.69 out of 5 (95% CI 3.34-4.04), with the lowest score of 1.96 for Medication Guidelines and the highest score of 4.27 for MCDEX mobile. The greatest variation was observed in the information section, which ranged from 1.41 to 4.60. The functionality section showed the highest mean score of 4.05 (95% CI 3.71-4.40), whereas the engagement section resulted in the lowest average score of 3.16 (95% CI 2.81-3.51). For the information quality section, which was the focus of this analysis, the average score was 3.42, with the MCDEX mobile app having the highest score of 4.6 and the Medication Guidelines app having the lowest score of 1.9. For the overall MARS score, the Cohen interrater κ was 0.354 (95% CI 0.236-0.473), the Fleiss κ was 0.353 (95% CI, 0.234-0.472), and the Krippendorff α was 0.356 (95% CI 0.237-0.475). CONCLUSIONS This study systematically reviewed the mHealth apps in China with a DDI check feature. The majority of investigated apps demonstrated high quality with accurate and comprehensive information on DDIs. However, a few of the apps that had a massive number of downloads in the Chinese market provided incorrect information. Given these apps might be used by health care providers for checking potential DDIs, this creates a substantial threat to patient safety.


2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-829
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bala ◽  
Rachel Birnbaum

This article examines various methods for involving children in family and child welfare proceedings, surveys varying approaches in different Canadian jurisdictions to the appointment of counsel for children in these cases, and explores the controversies about the role of counsel for children. While child representation is becoming common, in most provinces it is usually limited to welfare proceedings involving older children. All jurisdictions, however, have some provisions to allow for child participation in family relationship cases. Governments and law societies in Canada should develop more coherent and comprehensive programs and policies to ensure that the views of children are considered in the family justice process in a child-focused and cost-efficient manner. There needs to be more recognition of the role of lawyers in facilitating settlement. Appointment of counsel is, however, not always the best way to involve children ; if the child is willing to share views, in some cases this may be better done by a judicial interview, a Views of the Child Report or an assessment. There should be a presumption that counsel will be an instructional advocate, but if a child lacks the capacity or willingness to instruct counsel, counsel should be an advocate for the rights and interests of the child. Regardless of the role adopted, counsel for a child also has responsibility for introducing significant evidence not otherwise before the court.


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