JMIR mHealth and uHealth
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jul 2020
Health Observation App for COVID-19 Symptom Tracking Integrated With Personal Health Records: Proof of Concept and Practical Use Study.
As a counter-cluster measure to prevent the spread of the infectious novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an efficient system for health observation outside the hospital is urgently required. Personal health records (PHRs) are suitable for the daily management of physical conditions. Importantly, there are no major differences between the items collected by daily health observation via PHR and the observation of items related to COVID-19. Until now, observations related to COVID-19 have been performed exclusively based on disease-specific items. Therefore, we hypothesize that PHRs would be suitable as a symptom-tracking tool for COVID-19. To this end, we integrated health observation items specific to COVID-19 with an existing PHR-based app. ⋯ Health observation by PHRs for the purpose of improving health management can also be effectively applied as a measure against large-scale infectious diseases. Individual habits of improving awareness of personal health and the use of PHRs for daily health management are powerful armaments against the rapid spread of infectious diseases. Ultimately, similar actions may help to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jul 2020
Application and Preliminary Outcomes of Remote Diagnosis and Treatment During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Retrospective Cohort Study.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has resulted in the self-quarantine of countless people due to possible infection. This situation makes telemedicine necessary as it can overcome geographical barriers, increase the number of people served, and provide online clinical support for patients. However, the outcomes of telemedicine have not yet been evaluated. ⋯ Remote diagnosis and treatment offered via online outpatient consultations effectively reduced the burden on hospitals, prevented overcrowding, reduced the risk of cross-infection, and relieved patients' anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. This plays an essential role in pandemic management.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jul 2020
ReviewPrivacy Assessment in Mobile Health Apps: Scoping Review.
Privacy has always been a concern, especially in the health domain. The proliferation of mobile health (mHealth) apps has led to a large amount of sensitive data being generated. Some authors have performed privacy assessments of mHealth apps. They have evaluated diverse privacy components; however, different authors have used different criteria for their assessments. ⋯ The privacy assessment of mHealth apps is a complex task, as the criteria used by different authors for their evaluations are very heterogeneous. Although some studies about privacy assessment have been conducted, a very large set of items to evaluate privacy has been used up until now. In-app information and privacy policies are primarily utilized by the scientific community to extract privacy information from mHealth apps. The creation of a scale based on more objective criteria is a desirable step forward for privacy assessment in the future.