The rise
of eHealth
Due to the universal use
of smart phones and advancement of innovative health apps, they are rapidly
becoming widely used and accepted in the healthcare industry. Not only do they
raise awareness to inform patients, they also enable user-monitoring and
managing for personal health conditions. This, in return, allows healthcare
practitioners to track their patients’ health information to detect and
identify otherwise missed early signs of disease.
Preventing
disease
Health promotion and
prevention is an emerging area aimed at tackling many lifestyle-related chronic
diseases before they become problematic. These interventions tend to be focused
around diet, weight management, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption.
These factors are hugely associated with the triad that constitutes metabolic syndrome - obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Such apps have been found to both enhance user motivation and increase adherence to healthy lifestyle changes.
These factors are hugely associated with the triad that constitutes metabolic syndrome - obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Such apps have been found to both enhance user motivation and increase adherence to healthy lifestyle changes.
Alongside preventing
disease, apps are now able to identify and evaluate health risks, leading to
earlier diagnosis in many diseases. Based on personal information stored on a
phone, apps are able to produce a calculated disease risk and notify the user. This
has been found to be particularly beneficial in skin cancer, a disease by which
prognosis is highly dependent on the stage of diagnosis. If a user notices an
unusual marking, a simple photo can lead to early detection and potentially
life-saving insight.
Monitoring
and managing health status
In addition to prevention
and early diagnosis, apps can be used to improve the lives people currently
living with a condition. Self-monitoring and managing disease allows patients
to feel empowered, increasing both health literacy and motivation to improve
health status.
Apps for monitoring type
2-diabetes have received widespread attention. These often use an algorithm to
combine self-reported blood glucose levels, lab results and lifestyle factors
to produce a real-time personalized risk assessment. In a recent study,
patients who had access to this type of app had HbA1c levels 1.15% lower than
those who did not have access at 3 months.
Monitoring apps are
exceptionally important for healthcare professionals once their patients are
released, as it may only be feasible for a patient to attend an annual
appointment. An app allows both patients and doctors to distantly convey health
status information which can aid in managing many other chronic diseases.
References
Kim HS and Jeong HS.
(2007). A nurse short message service by cellular phone in type-2 diabetic
patients for six months. Journal of
Clinical Nursing.
Blake H. (2008). Mobile
phone technology in chronic disease management. Nursing Standard.
Farmer A et al (2004). A
systematic review of telemedicine interventions to support blood glucose
self-monitoring in diabetes. Diabetic
Medicine.
Free C et al. (2013). The effectiveness of
mobile-health technology-based health behavior change or disease management
intervention. PLoS Medicine.
