Mobile Health Applications - Research Paper Example

To What Extent do Mobile Health Apps Benefit Patients in Remote Areas within the U.K? Name Institution Abstract This study focuses on exploring the benefits of mobile health applications to patients in remote areas in the United Kingdom. Mobile health service delivery is a promising way of delivering healthcare service to people and communities in remote locations. The development of mobile health service affects many stakeholders which necessitates their participation. This study explore the issues of mobile health service using secondary data from scholarly article and proceeds to conduct a primary research survey in two remote locations in UK. Questionnaire will be used in this survey to collect information of how the people in the remote areas experience mobile healthcare services and applications. It is also important to conduct respectful research and thus it is necessary to conduct ethical research. This study will stick to ethical guidelines for research. Keywords: Mobile health, e-health, health benefits Introduction and Background Medical health apps (mHealth) is a dimension of e-health that is promising to improve health care efficiency and effectiveness both in the rural and urban areas (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016). According to Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro (2015) the development of the mobile health market is a testimony to the people’s interest to manage their health using mobile tools. It is also a product of the emphasis on patient engagement in health management. Evidently, mobile health apps inclusion in healthcare system has beneficial effects on effective collection of clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information and provision of required health services (Baig, Hosseini & Connolly, 2015). To clearly get required research results on the extent of mobile health apps in rural areas, first it is necessary to look at the stakeholders concerned (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016). The stake holders in the use of mhealth application include patients; who are the key stakeholders in terms of mobile apps use and participation in mHealth care services (Malvey & Slovensky, 2014). Second group includes physicians, families and care givers who have firsthand management and knowledge of the patient’s condition (Malvey & Slovensky, 2014). Clinicians, who use mHealth applications to record, analyze and prescribe medications (Malvey & Slovensky, 2014). Fourth, there are health care facilities. Health care facilities consist of ambulatory surgery centres, community group homes and home health agencies who need efficiency in terms of low cost patient care delivery and operational effectiveness (Swendsen, Ben-Zeev, & Granholm, 2011; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015; Malvey & Slovensky, 2014). Researchers are also stakeholders of mHealth because they use mobile health apps to create better data required for analytical trials (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). Also government (legislators) acquires better data from mHealth for health care policies in the country (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). Statutory health Insurances are also stakeholders in mHealth (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). SHIs provide health insurance coverage to clients as well as offering individual administrative for patients. Lastly, we have manufacturers and developers who are concerned with the creation of the various applications used in the health sector (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). Alternatively the key stakeholders can be further broken down to subsets, these are; patients, practitioners in private practices (PPP), application developers (AD), hospitals and nursing homes (HNH), emergency medical services and mobile home care (EMS/MHC) and statutory health insurances (SHI). Regarding mHealth’s extend and potential to transform in rural areas of the U.K. it is imperative to take into consideration the following subjects; regulations governing mobile health apps, integrity of communication commission in the U.K. and the status of health care department. This project’s main concerned is evaluating the effectiveness of mobile health (IT) apps in remote areas of the United Kingdom. Challenges of providing quick and quality health care to individuals living in remote places have been a main setback to U.K’s health care system (Effken & Abbott, 2009). Examples of the challenges and problems are: regulatory uncertainty, imperfect data connectivity, unclear approved reimbursement mechanisms, inadequate digital skills and lack of stakeholder engagement (Boudreaux, et al 2014). Therefore it is important to get the full knowledge for so as to get a comparative assessment between having a mobile backed health care strategy and not having one. Such assessment should take into account quality services, costs incurred during treatment and the general well-being of patients during and after diagnosis. The project will have enormous benefits to the various stakeholders by strengthening their role they play in healthcare delivery, facilitating monitoring and evaluation, as well as improvement of healthcare services. Moreover the project will ensure that patients have easy access to medical services, quality health care and low cost incurred during and after treatment. Similarly, doctors and practitioners will have conclusive and clear data of patients’ medical histories. Generally, the project will ensure that individuals in rural areas who are not aware of mobile health apps get informed on the necessity and importance of mHealth to the society keeping in mind the importance of a healthy nation (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016). Different studies have been conducted on this topic covering various issues regarding the benefits of mhealth applications in health (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Pinnock et al., 2013; Greenhalgh, et al. 2015; Mosa, Yoo & Sheets 2012; Stickland et al. 2011; Baig, Hosseini, & Connolly, 2015; Boudreaux et al., 2014). However, the studies do not adequately cover the benefits mhealth applications in the rural areas. Unlike the previous studies, this study will focus on remote areas of UK collect primary data on the benefits and uses of mhealth services the rural areas the compare the findings with the data document in secondary sources. Aims The objective of this study is to show the details of mHealth in relation to primary health care management system and also to reflect on the effect of mobile based health care management systems in the rural areas of the United Kingdom. Other objectives are; To determine the number of people who have and use digital technology devices in rural areas. To compare the benefits of mHealth between rural and urban areas in the United Kingdom. To provide data for benchmarking health care progress and prosperity in the country. To create awareness and educate individuals in rural areas on the importance of mHealth. To identify critical factors that will ensure sustainable mHealth programs. To evaluate the benefits provided by mobile health applications. To identify the barriers which hinder the achievement of mHealth benefits. To outline recommendations that will enable the adoption and prosperous achievement of mobile health applications. Literature Review According to reports compiled by the Advisory Groups for the Horizon 2020 Work, information and communication technologies (ICT) are seen as a major area of investment (European Commission, 2014). Although, the reports tackled vast topics than health, it is clear that ICT has an enormous ability in transforming health care sector. In addition, the reports also assert that mobile applications can increase accessibility of primary care, cut costs, boost patients confidence in relation to health care and most importantly mHealth can improve quality of life. Similarly, Mosa, Yoo & Sheets (2012) assert that remote areas are subjected to poor infrastructure, low human and capital resources therefore mHealth adoption in rural and remote areas is vital. In addition, according, to studies conducted in Canada to determine mHealth efficiency in improving care and medication adherence, show that mhealth improves healthcare outcomes of patients (Stickland, et al. (2011). On the other hand, many sick people have been able to copy with challenge of living with disabling chronic using various using (Greenhalgh, et al. (2015). In exploring these and more benefits of mobile health, this study will use several technologies, and use both secondary data from databases and primary date collected through surveys. Technologies and Resources Major Smartphone and IT technologies will be included in the study, 3G technologies, 4G technologies, VPN, GSM, GPRS, Geochat, Cam e-WARN, SMS and email (Ventola, 2014; World health Organization, 2011). The study will also use electronic data base search engines like PubMed. Methods and Work plan The study will start with a database search for secondary data on mhealth from scholarly articles. The search will seek recent articles, published with the past 10 year on the subject of mhealth. The search will focus on the databases like PubMed and MEDLINE. The search for article will use several key terms. The key search terms will include “mHealth,” “benefits of mHealth,” “mobile health,” “mobile health benefits” “mobile health services,” “mobile health devices,” “implementing mobile health,” “challenge facing mobile health,” “mobile health stakeholders,” “mhealth in remote areas,” “mobile health applications,” “mhealth applications,” “Smartphone’s and healthcare” “mobile devices managing health care” “Telehelath” “Telehealth services,” “telehealth applications,” “telehelath promotion,” “mobile health promotion,” and “mhealth promotion” among others. A wider range of key search terms and their recombination will be used to ensure all relevant articles are captured. This will be followed by sorting the article and settling on the most appropriate articles that can serve as source of secondary for this study. The second section of this methodology will involve collecting primary data. The study focuses on the extent to which mHealth can benefit patient in remote areas within the U.K. Therefore there is need to compare the effect of mobile health apps in accessible areas and that of remote areas. In terms of, knowledge of mHealth in both towns and remote areas, number of smart phone bearers in accessible and inaccessible areas and the effectiveness of mobile health applications in health care. Therefore, I will visit at least two remote areas. In these areas, I will administer questionnaires to collect various critical information about their experience and opinions about mobile healthcare. The questionnaire will be tested for validity and I will them apply it randomly in two remote areas on the beneficiaries or people who have used mhealth services before or are current users of the services. The questionnaire will inquire on how well are people conversant with mobile health apps, how many people use Smartphone’s, PCs or any network enabled gadget, how strong and efficient is the network around the area and how many people think that mhealth can improve their health standards etc. Further I will conduct interviews to people (patients and families and care givers) as well as to medical practitioners and network providers on various topics. Such as the effectiveness of mHealth, the problem underlying to the mHealth progress, easiest way of making remote areas get into the bigger picture and also what it will take for medical practice to be digitized. Discussion Over the years there has been emergence of the necessity to matters of ethics, protection and safety while conducting interviews or during questionnaire administration. It is essential for researchers to uphold privacy as an international norm and ethical standard (Gans-Combe, 2009). Research privacy entails codes that govern access to, and the protection of personal information. Regarding the project on the extent of which mobile health application can benefit remote areas in the United Kingdom, the correspondents will demand for privacy when interviews and questionnaires will be conducted (Sheehy, 2005). Most people would never like there medical history and records to be shared to anyone save for their doctors. Anonymous information has very no identifiers and has very low risk of individuals being identified (Gregory, 2003). After and during the interviews I will safeguard every bit of information that will be entrusted to me and I will not reveal or disclose the specifics of the correspondents’ details. Confidentiality does not only work on information retrieved from participants it also applies to information received from other organizations and other researchers. Considering research ethics mandate that asserts every researcher should seek consent from governing research boards when they need identifiable information for secondary. According to Gans-Combe (2009) it is important to respect every privacy law and regulations such doctor-patient privacy in terms of medical records of various patients. I will seek approval from appropriate bodies or individuals who are concerned. I will also seek consent for the participant before collecting their opinions and responses. Finally, the processing of research data is also important and data ought to be handled appropriately in order to provide accurate information regarding the research. Therefore, in collecting and processing data I will keep the data accurate and updated. In ensuring accuracy, it is important to avoid fabrication or data and only use and present accurately the collected data. Similarly, it is important to avoid plagiarism especially since, the research study will use a lot of information for secondary sources. It is important to acknowledge all information and data collected from secondary sources. Fabrication or data and plagiarism are unethical and undermine the quality of research. References Baig, M. M, Hosseini, H. H. & Connolly, M. J. (2015). Mobile healthcare applications: system design review, critical issues and challenges. Australas Phys Eng Sci Med, 38:23–38 Boudreaux, E. W., Waring, M. E., Hayes, R. B., Sadasivam, R. S. Mullen, S., & Pagoto, S. (2014). Evaluating and selecting mobile health apps: strategies for healthcare providers and healthcare organizations. TBM 4.363–371 doi: 10.1007/s13142-014-0293-9 Effken, J. A., & Abbott, P. (2009). Health IT-enabled Care for Underserved Rural Populations: The Role of Nursing. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 16(4), 439–445. http://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2971 European Commission. (2014) Horizon 2020 program website http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en. Gans-Combe, C. (2009). Data Protection and Privacy ethical guidelines. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/fp7/89827/privacy_en.pdf Goodridge, D & Marciniuk, D. (2016). Rural and remote care: Overcoming the challenges of distance. Chronic Respiratory Disease, Vol. 13(2) 192–203 Greenhalgh, T., et al. (2015). What is assisted living technology? The ARCHIE framework for effective telehealth and telecare services. BMC Med 13(91). Gregory, I. (2003). Ethics in research. London: Continuum. Malvey, D. M., & Slovensky, D. J. (2014). MHealth: Transforming healthcare. New York : Springer. Mosa, A. S. M., Yoo, I., & Sheets, L. (2012). A Systematic Review of Healthcare Applications for Smart phones. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2012, 12:67 Petersen, C., Adams, S. A., & DeMuro, P. R. (2015). mHealth: Don’t Forget All the Stakeholders in the Business Case. Medicine 2.0, 4(2), e4. http://doi.org/10.2196/med20.4349 Pinnock, H. et al. (2013). Effectiveness of telemonitoring integrated into existing clinical services on hospital admission for exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: research blind, multicenter, randomized controlled trial. BMJ 347: f6070. Sheehy, K. (2005). Ethics and Research in Inclusive Education: Values Into Practice. Pyschology press. Stickland, M. K., et al. (2011). Using Telehealth technology to deliver pulmonary rehabilitation to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Can Respir J 18(4), 216–220. Swendsen, J., Ben-Zeev, D., & Granholm, E. (2011). Real-time electronic ambulatory monitoring of substance use and symptom expression in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 168:202–209. Ventola, C. L. (2014). Mobile Devices and Apps for Health Care Professionals: Uses and Benefits. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(5), 356–364. World health Organization. (2011). mHealth New horizons for health through mobile technologies. Global Observatory for eHealth series - Volume 3. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/goe/publications/goe_mhealth_web.pdf Read More

Also government (legislators) acquires better data from mHealth for health care policies in the country (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). Statutory health Insurances are also stakeholders in mHealth (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015). SHIs provide health insurance coverage to clients as well as offering individual administrative for patients. Lastly, we have manufacturers and developers who are concerned with the creation of the various applications used in the health sector (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Petersen, Adams, & DeMuro, 2015).

Alternatively the key stakeholders can be further broken down to subsets, these are; patients, practitioners in private practices (PPP), application developers (AD), hospitals and nursing homes (HNH), emergency medical services and mobile home care (EMS/MHC) and statutory health insurances (SHI). Regarding mHealth’s extend and potential to transform in rural areas of the U.K. it is imperative to take into consideration the following subjects; regulations governing mobile health apps, integrity of communication commission in the U.K. and the status of health care department.

This project’s main concerned is evaluating the effectiveness of mobile health (IT) apps in remote areas of the United Kingdom. Challenges of providing quick and quality health care to individuals living in remote places have been a main setback to U.K’s health care system (Effken & Abbott, 2009). Examples of the challenges and problems are: regulatory uncertainty, imperfect data connectivity, unclear approved reimbursement mechanisms, inadequate digital skills and lack of stakeholder engagement (Boudreaux, et al 2014).

Therefore it is important to get the full knowledge for so as to get a comparative assessment between having a mobile backed health care strategy and not having one. Such assessment should take into account quality services, costs incurred during treatment and the general well-being of patients during and after diagnosis. The project will have enormous benefits to the various stakeholders by strengthening their role they play in healthcare delivery, facilitating monitoring and evaluation, as well as improvement of healthcare services.

Moreover the project will ensure that patients have easy access to medical services, quality health care and low cost incurred during and after treatment. Similarly, doctors and practitioners will have conclusive and clear data of patients’ medical histories. Generally, the project will ensure that individuals in rural areas who are not aware of mobile health apps get informed on the necessity and importance of mHealth to the society keeping in mind the importance of a healthy nation (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016).

Different studies have been conducted on this topic covering various issues regarding the benefits of mhealth applications in health (Goodridge & Marciniuk, 2016; Pinnock et al., 2013; Greenhalgh, et al. 2015; Mosa, Yoo & Sheets 2012; Stickland et al. 2011; Baig, Hosseini, & Connolly, 2015; Boudreaux et al., 2014). However, the studies do not adequately cover the benefits mhealth applications in the rural areas. Unlike the previous studies, this study will focus on remote areas of UK collect primary data on the benefits and uses of mhealth services the rural areas the compare the findings with the data document in secondary sources.

Aims The objective of this study is to show the details of mHealth in relation to primary health care management system and also to reflect on the effect of mobile based health care management systems in the rural areas of the United Kingdom. Other objectives are; To determine the number of people who have and use digital technology devices in rural areas. To compare the benefits of mHealth between rural and urban areas in the United Kingdom. To provide data for benchmarking health care progress and prosperity in the country.

To create awareness and educate individuals in rural areas on the importance of mHealth.

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