E-tools for hospital management: An overview of smartphone applications for health professionals

Abstract

Background: Commonly, the management of the main hospital activities are organized by different software packages that run on desktop computers which may not always allow a fast and practical use by health operators. This problem could be alleviated through the use of mobile health. The aim of this study was to give an overview of smartphone and tablet applications used for hospital management and administration, in order to evaluate their features and analyse them according to their contents, number of downloads and field of application.Methods: Researchers performed the survey on the two main application stores available on the Internet: iTunes for Apple devices and Google Play for Android devices. Using specific keywords, 47 apps were identified and met inclusion criteria.Results: Most of the applications were designed for health operators and patients' management (76.6%), 12.8% were apps focused on the organization and setting of the hospital resources, while 10.6% included apps that could help hospital administrators to perform self-evaluations of their structures, processes and outcomes. The large majority of apps (80.7%) counted less than 1000 downloads. Most of them (87.5%) were in English and free to download (93.6%). Discussion:The results of first attempt to provide an overview about this emerging topic showed how, despite the existence of several applications for hospital management purposes, these tools appear to be still poorly widespread. In our opinion, there is a strong need to assess furtherly the quality of these applications, thus it may be worth to continue monitoring this field in order to analyse eventual improvements in the design and diffusion of these apps.

Implementation and Evaluation of a Web-Based Distribution System For Anesthesia Department Guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures: Qualitative Study and Content Analysis

“…The effect on patient care remains unclear, but usage patterns suggest that electronic access to guidelines is highly appreciated. Mobile phones apps are an emerging tool in health care [24-27], and they are leading to new possibilities, such as applications in patient management, resource distribution, and quality control [28]. Our Web-based system and most of the apps available fall in the category of patient management [28-30].…”

“…Mobile phones apps are an emerging tool in health care [24-27], and they are leading to new possibilities, such as applications in patient management, resource distribution, and quality control [28]. Our Web-based system and most of the apps available fall in the category of patient management [28-30]. Some trials investigating the effect of mobile technology have shown that it significantly improves outcomes related to disease management [29].…”

The Challenges of Telemedicine in Rheumatology

“…Mobile applications (apps) represent an opportunity to improve health status and disease management by collecting large data, and play an important role particularly in peer support (patient-to-patient communication), which provides mutual exchange between patients in terms of knowledge, experience, and emotional, social or practical support. In rheumatology, there are nearly 200,000 available apps on Apple or Android devices, however, only a few have been rigorously evaluated and approved with clinical benefits ( 3 ). Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) need regular monitoring by a rheumatologist to achieve good health outcomes, as a result, RA apps have become currently most demanding ones in mobile market ( 4 ), but recent studies assessing the quality of RA apps showed that most of them were not achieving high-quality scores and that data on funding and origin were frequently unavailable ( 5 , 6 ).…”

Mobile health in cardiac patients: an overview on experiences and challenges of stakeholders involved in daily use and development

“…5 6 mHealth might improve care by enabling remote diagnosis and treatment, and reducing healthcare utilisation and costs. [7][8][9][10] mHealth has been studied in cardiac patients to evaluate potential benefits and has shown promising results in several cardiac patient groups. [11][12][13][14][15][16] Last year, a randomised controlled trial on mHealth in patients with heart failure demonstrated a significant reduction of all-cause mortality in patients assigned to the mHealth arm.…”