mHealth and telemedicine apps: in search of a common regulation

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Abstract

Developments in information and communication technology have changed the way healthcare processes are experienced by both patients and healthcare professionals: more and more services are now available through computers and mobile devices. Smartphones are becoming useful tools for managing one’s health, and today, there are many available apps meant to increase self-management, empowerment and quality of life. However, there are concerns about the implications of using mHealth and apps: data protection issues, concerns about sharing information online, and the patients’ capacity for discerning effective and valid apps from useless ones. The new General Data Protection Regulation has been introduced in order to give uniformity to data protection regulations among European countries but shared guidelines for mHealth are yet to develop. A unified perspective across Europe would increase the control over mHealth exploitation, making it possible to think of mHealth as effective and standard tools for future medical practice.

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Mobile devices and apps for health care professionals: uses and benefits.

C Lee Ventola (2014)

Health care professionals' use of mobile devices is transforming clinical practice. Numerous medical software applications can now help with tasks ranging from information and time management to clinical decision-making at the point of care.

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Who Uses Mobile Phone Health Apps and Does Use Matter? A Secondary Data Analytics Approach

Jennifer K Carroll, Anne S. Moorhead, Raymond R Bond … (2017)

Background Mobile phone use and the adoption of healthy lifestyle software apps (“health apps”) are rapidly proliferating. There is limited information on the users of health apps in terms of their social demographic and health characteristics, intentions to change, and actual health behaviors. Objective The objectives of our study were to (1) to describe the sociodemographic characteristics associated with health app use in a recent US nationally representative sample; (2) to assess the attitudinal and behavioral predictors of the use of health apps for health promotion; and (3) to examine the association between the use of health-related apps and meeting the recommended guidelines for fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity. Methods Data on users of mobile devices and health apps were analyzed from the National Cancer Institute’s 2015 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), which was designed to provide nationally representative estimates for health information in the United States and is publicly available on the Internet. We used multivariable logistic regression models to assess sociodemographic predictors of mobile device and health app use and examine the associations between app use, intentions to change behavior, and actual behavioral change for fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and weight loss. Results From the 3677 total HINTS respondents, older individuals (45-64 years, odds ratio, OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.47-68; 65+ years, OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.14-0.24), males (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.66-0.94), and having degree (OR 2.83, 95% CI 2.18-3.70) or less than high school education (OR 0.43, 95% CI 0.24-0.72) were all significantly associated with a reduced likelihood of having adopted health apps. Similarly, both age and education were significant variables for predicting whether a person had adopted a mobile device, especially if that person was a college graduate (OR 3.30). Individuals with apps were significantly more likely to report intentions to improve fruit (63.8% with apps vs 58.5% without apps, P=.01) and vegetable (74.9% vs 64.3%, P<.01) consumption, physical activity (83.0% vs 65.4%, P<.01), and weight loss (83.4% vs 71.8%, P<.01). Individuals with apps were also more likely to meet recommendations for physical activity compared with those without a device or health apps (56.2% with apps vs 47.8% without apps, P<.01). Conclusions The main users of health apps were individuals who were younger, had more education, reported excellent health, and had a higher income. Although differences persist for gender, age, and educational attainment, many individual sociodemographic factors are becoming less potent in influencing engagement with mobile devices and health app use. App use was associated with intentions to change diet and physical activity and meeting physical activity recommendations.

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Cognitive Factors of Using Health Apps: Systematic Analysis of Relationships Among Health Consciousness, Health Information Orientation, eHealth Literacy, and Health App Use Efficacy

Jaehee Cho, Dongjin Park, H Lee (2014)

Background Interest in smartphone health apps has been increasing recently. However, we have little understanding of the cognitive and motivational factors that influence the extent of health-app use. Objective This study aimed to examine the effects of four cognitive factors—health consciousness, health information orientation, eHealth literacy, and health-app use efficacy—on the extent of health-app use. It also explored the influence of two different use patterns—information and information-behavior use of health apps—with regard to the relationships among the main study variables. Methods We collected and analyzed 765 surveys in South Korea. According to the results, there was a negligible gender difference: males (50.6%, 387/765) and females (49.4%, 378/765). All participants were adults whose ages ranged from 19 to 59. In order to test the proposed hypotheses, we used a path analysis as a specific form of structural equation modeling. Results Through a path analysis, we discovered that individuals’ health consciousness had a direct effect on their use of health apps. However, unlike the initial expectations, the effects of health information orientation and eHealth literacy on health-app use were mediated by health-app use efficacy. Conclusions The results from the path analysis addressed a significant direct effect of health consciousness as well as strong mediating effects of health-app use efficacy. These findings contribute to widening our comprehension of the new, digital dimensions of health management, particularly those revolving around mobile technology.

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Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Ecancermedicalscience

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Ecancermedicalscience

Journal ID (publisher-id): ecancermedicalscience

Title: ecancermedicalscience

Publisher: Cancer Intelligence

ISSN (Electronic): 1754-6605

Publication date Collection: 2018

Publication date (Electronic): 11 July 2018

Volume: 12

Electronic Location Identifier: 853

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Oncology and Hemato-Oncology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

[2 ]Applied Research Division for Cognitive and Psychological Science, European Institute of Oncology, Milan 20141, Italy

[3 ]Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology, Saarland University, Homburg/Saar, Germany

[4 ]Department of Biomedical Ethics, Institute of Experimental Medicine, University of Kiel, Germany

[5 ]Computational Biomedicine Laboratory, FORTH-ICS, Heraklion, Greece

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Correspondence to: Chiara Crico. chiara.crico@ 123456ieo.it

Article

Publisher ID: can-12-853

DOI: 10.3332/ecancer.2018.853

PMC ID: 6057658

PubMed ID: 30079115

SO-VID: 77416117-e6d2-40fb-9a1f-2a39f138e9d5

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

mHealth and telemedicine apps: in search of a common regulation

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Most cited references 29

Mobile devices and apps for health care professionals: uses and benefits.

Who Uses Mobile Phone Health Apps and Does Use Matter? A Secondary Data Analytics Approach

Cognitive Factors of Using Health Apps: Systematic Analysis of Relationships Among Health Consciousness, Health Information Orientation, eHealth Literacy, and Health App Use Efficacy

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