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Review
. 2021:23:100558.
doi: 10.1016/j.imu.2021.100558. Epub 2021 Apr 3.

A scope of mobile health solutions in COVID-19 pandemics

Afsoon Asadzadeh  1   2 , Leila R Kalankesh  2   3
Affiliations
Review

A scope of mobile health solutions in COVID-19 pandemics

Afsoon Asadzadeh et al. Inform Med Unlocked. 2021.

Abstract

Background and aim: COVID-19 has become an international emergency. The use of digital solutions can be effective in managing, preventing, and overcoming the further spread of infectious disease outbreaks. Accordingly, the use of mobile-health (m-health) technologies has the potential to promote public health. This review aimed to study the application of m-health solutions for the management of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Methods: The search strategy was done in Medline (PubMed), Embase, IEEE, and Google Scholar by using related keywords to m-health and COVID-19 on July 6, 2020. English papers that used m-health technologies for the COVID-19 outbreak were included.

Results: Of the 2046 papers identified, 16 were included in this study. M-health had been used for various aims such as early detection, fast screening, patient monitoring, information sharing, education, and treatment in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. M-health solutions were classified into four use case categories: prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and protection. The mobile phone-based app and short text massaging were the most frequently used modalities, followed by wearables, portable screening devices, mobile-telehealth, and continuous telemetry monitor during the pandemics.

Conclusion: It appears that m-health technologies played a positive role during the COVID-19 outbreak. Given the extensive capabilities of m-health solutions, investigation and use of all potential applications of m-health should be considered for combating the current Epidemics and mitigating its negative impacts.

Keywords: COVID-19; Epidemic; Infectious disease; Mobile health; Outbreak; Telehealth.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart for the selection process of the included studies.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Overview of m-health applications for the management of the COVID-19 outbreak.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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