Using mHealth to Increase the Reach of Local Guidance to Health Professionals as Part of an Institutional Response Plan to the COVID-19 Outbreak: Usage Analysis Study

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Abstract

Background

The ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forced health jurisdictions worldwide to significantly restructure and reorganize their medical activities. In response to the rapidly evolving body of evidence, a solid communication strategy is needed to increase the reach of and adherence to locally drafted and validated guidance to aide medical staff with COVID-19–related clinical decisions.

Objective

We present a usage analysis of a dedicated mobile health (mHealth) platform as part of an institutional knowledge dissemination strategy of COVID-19–related guidance to all health care workers (HCWs) in a large academic hospital.

Methods

A multidisciplinary team of experts drafted local guidance related to COVID-19. In total, 60 documents and 17 external links were made available through the platform. Documents were disseminated using a recently deployed mHealth platform for HCWs. Targeted dissemination of COVID-19–related content began on March 22, 2020. Using a third-party statistics tool, data concerning user activity and content use was anonymously collected. A quantitative analysis of user activity was performed over a 4-month period, separated into 3 periods: 2 months before (Period A), 2 weeks after (Period B), and 6 weeks following (Period C) targeted dissemination. Regional epidemiological data (daily new COVID-19 cases and total COVID-19–related hospitalizations) was extracted from an official registry.

Results

During the study period, the platform was downloaded by 1233 new users. Consequently, the total number of users increased from 1766 users before Period A to a total of 2999 users at the end of Period C. We observed 27,046 document views, of which 12,728 (47.1%) were COVID-19–related. The highest increase in activity occurred in Period B, rapidly following targeted dissemination, with 7740 COVID-19–related content views, representing 71.2% of total content views within the abovementioned period and 550 daily views of COVID-19–related documents. Total documents consulted per day increased from 117 (IQR 74-160) to 657 (IQR 481-1051), P<.001. This increase in activity followed the epidemiological curbing of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases, which peaked during Period B. Total active devices doubled from 684 to 1400, daily user activity increased fourfold, and the number of active devices rose from 53 (IQR 40-70) to 210 (IQR 167-297), P<.001. In addition, the number of sessions per day rose from 166 (IQR 110-246) to 704 (IQR 517-1028), P<.001. A persistent but reduced increase in total documents consulted per day (172 [IQR 131-251] versus 117 [IQR 74-160], P<.001) and active devices (71 [IQR 64-89] versus 53 [IQR 40-70]) was observed in Period C compared to Period A, while only 29.8% of the content accessed was COVID-19–related. After targeted dissemination, an immediate increase in activity was observed after push notifications were sent to users.

Conclusions

The use of an mHealth solution to disseminate time-sensitive medical knowledge seemed to be an effective solution to increase the reach of validated content to a targeted audience.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Olivier Windisch:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8963-5445

Division of UrologyDepartment of SurgeryUniversity Hospitals of GenevaRue Gabrielle-Perret-GentilGenevaSwitzerland41 79 777 78 89olivier.windisch@hcuge.ch

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

Journal ID (publisher-id): JMU

Title: JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Publisher: JMIR Publications (Toronto, Canada )

ISSN (Electronic): 2291-5222

Publication date Collection: August 2020

Publication date (Electronic): 19 August 2020

Publication date PMC-release: 19 August 2020

Volume: 8

Issue: 8

Electronic Location Identifier: e20025

Affiliations

[1 ] Division of Urology Department of Surgery University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[2 ] Division of General Internal Medicine Department of Medicine University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[3 ] Faculty of Medicine University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[4 ] School of Education Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD United States

[5 ] Division of Infectious Diseases Department of Medicine University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[6 ] Division of Clinical Epidemiology Department of Community Health and Medicine University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[7 ] Medical Directorate University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[8 ] Division of Anesthesiology Department of Anesthesiology, Clinical Pharmacology, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine University Hospitals of Geneva Geneva Switzerland

[9 ] Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact McMaster University Hamilton, ON Canada

Author notes

Corresponding Author: Olivier Windisch olivier.windisch@ 123456hcuge.ch

Author information

Olivier Windisch https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8963-5445

Ido Zamberg https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4534-4635

Marie-Céline Zanella https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9544-1295

Angèle Gayet-Ageron https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6164-9693

Katherine Blondon https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9407-8516

Eduardo Schiffer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7415-4315

Thomas Agoritsas https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6182-9969

Article

Publisher ID: v8i8e20025

DOI: 10.2196/20025

PMC ID: 7439805

PubMed ID: 32749996

SO-VID: 3e3ff60a-c8ca-46dd-a6a9-2c0b1ba7422c

Copyright © ©Olivier Windisch, Ido Zamberg, Marie-Céline Zanella, Angèle Gayet-Ageron, Katherine Blondon, Eduardo Schiffer, Thomas Agoritsas. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 19.08.2020.

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

History

Date received : 9 May 2020

Date revision requested : 13 July 2020

Date revision received : 31 July 2020

Date accepted : 2 August 2020

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