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Throughout the history of medicine, physicians have relied upon disruptive innovations and technologies to improve the quality of care delivered, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction. The implementation of mobile technology in health care is quickly becoming the next disruptive technology. We first review the history of mobile technology over the past 3 decades, discuss the impact of hardware and software, explore the rapid expansion of applications (apps), and evaluate the adoption of mobile technology in health care. Next, we discuss how technology serves as the vehicle that can transform traditional didactic learning into one that adapts to the learning behavior of the student by using concepts such as the flipped classroom, just-in-time learning, social media, and Web 2.0/3.0. The focus in this modern education paradigm is shifting from teacher-centric to learner-centric, including providers and patients, and is being delivered as context-sensitive, or semantic, learning. Finally, we present the methods by which connected health systems via mobile devices increase information collection and analysis from patients in both clinical care and research environments. This enhanced patient and provider connection has demonstrated benefits including reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions, improved perioperative health maintenance coordination, and improved care in remote and underserved areas. A significant portion of the future of health care, and specifically perioperative medicine, revolves around mobile technology, nimble learners, patient-specific information and decision-making, and continuous connectivity between patients and health care systems. As such, an understanding of developing or evaluating mobile technology likely will be important for anesthesiologists, particularly with an ever-expanding scope of practice in perioperative medicine.
Throughout the history of medicine, physicians have relied upon disruptive innovations and technologies to improve the quality of care delivered, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction. The implementation of mobile technology in health care is quickly becoming the next disruptive technology. We first review the history of mobile technology over the past 3 decades, discuss the impact of hardware and software, explore the rapid expansion of applications (apps), and evaluate the adoption of mobile technology in health care. Next, we discuss how technology serves as the vehicle that can transform traditional didactic learning into one that adapts to the learning behavior of the student by using concepts such as the flipped classroom, just-in-time learning, social media, and Web 2.0/3.0. The focus in this modern education paradigm is shifting from teacher-centric to learner-centric, including providers and patients, and is being delivered as context-sensitive, or semantic, learning. Finally, we present the methods by which connected health systems via mobile devices increase information collection and analysis from patients in both clinical care and research environments. This enhanced patient and provider connection has demonstrated benefits including reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions, improved perioperative health maintenance coordination, and improved care in remote and underserved areas. A significant portion of the future of health care, and specifically perioperative medicine, revolves around mobile technology, nimble learners, patient-specific information and decision-making, and continuous connectivity between patients and health care systems. As such, an understanding of developing or evaluating mobile technology likely will be important for anesthesiologists, particularly with an ever-expanding scope of practice in perioperative medicine.
BackgroundThe advent of telemedicine has allowed physicians to deliver medical treatment to patients from a distance. Mobile apps such as WhatsApp Messenger, an instant messaging service, came as a novel concept in all fields of social life, including medicine. The use of instant messaging services has been shown to improve communication within medical teams by providing means for quick teleconsultation, information sharing, and starting treatment as soon as possible.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to perform a comprehensive systematic review of present literature on the use of the WhatsApp Messenger app as an adjunctive health care tool for medical doctors.MethodsSearches were performed in PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library using the term “whatsapp*” in articles published before January 2016. A bibliography of all relevant original articles that used the WhatsApp Messenger app was created. The level of evidence of each study was determined according to the Oxford Levels of Evidence ranking system produced by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. The impact and the indications of WhatsApp Messenger are discussed in order to understand the extent to which this app currently functions as an adjunctive tool for telemedicine.ResultsThe database search identified a total of 30 studies in which the term “whatsapp*” was used. Each article’s list of references was evaluated item-by-item. After literature reviews, letters to the editor, and low-quality studies were excluded, a total of 10 studies were found to be eligible for inclusion. Of these studies, 9 had been published in the English language and 1 had been published in Spanish. Five were published by medical doctors.ConclusionsThe pooled data presents compelling evidence that the WhatsApp Messenger app is a promising system, whether used as a communication tool between health care professionals, as a means of communication between health care professionals and the general public, or as a learning tool for providing health care information to professionals or to the general population. However, high-quality and properly evaluated research is needed, as are improvements in descriptions of the methodology and the study processes. These improvements will allow WhatsApp Messenger to be categorically defined as an effective telemedicine tool in many different fields of health care.
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