WhatsApp Messenger as an Adjunctive Tool for Telemedicine: An Overview

Abstract

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.

Family Integrated Care: changing the culture in the neonatal unit

“…Subgroups of staff and parents formed to lead improvement in each of these areas, coordinating their work using WhatsApp to communicate rapidly across our large and busy staff 27. Each subgroup was encouraged to think ‘outside the box’, developing innovative solutions to the challenges of FIC, as discussed in more detail below and summarised in table 2.…”

Usage Analysis of WhatsApp for Dentistry-related Purposes among General Dental Practitioners

“…WhatsApp efficacy and utility has been demonstrated in pediatric burns and orthopedic trauma, palliative care, pulmonary medicine, neurosurgery, anesthesia, and paresthesia evaluation, hematuria evaluation, dermatology practice, nursing practice, for second opinions in pathology, cytology (tele-cytology) and clinical medicine, and more recently in health education on tobacco and oral cancer. 3,4 In dentistry, efforts have been made to study the utility of WhatsApp messenger service across various disciplines. [5][6][7][8][9][10] The general dental practitioner (GDP) is a dentist or dental surgeon with a recognized University qualification, registered to practice a broad range of treatments.…”

Text Messages Sent to Household Tuberculosis Contacts in Kampala, Uganda: Process Evaluation (Preprint)

“…The concurrent emergence of low-cost, easy-to-use mobile health (mHealth) applications like telephone-based short-messaging services (SMS) and chat applications like WhatsApp have facilitated a variety of new interventions to enhance communication between patients and health-care providers. While communicating health information via mobile phones seems to be acceptable [3][4][5], mHealth studies have reported varying levels of success at improving patient wellbeing and clinical outcomes [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Potential explanations for this variability may arise from a failure to plan for, collect, or report key process measures important for characterizing the implementation of mHealth interventions.…”