About this Research Topic
Mobile health, also called mHealth, is a technology that uses telecommunication devices such as personal digital assistants, smartphones, laptops, and so on to provide health care and information. In recent years, mHealth technology has been used for various purposes, which include (1) supporting clinical diagnosis and/or decision-making, (2) acting as standalone digital therapeutics, (3) improving access to health services, (4) adherence to treatment, (5) management of chronic diseases, (6) education, monitoring, and communication with the patient, and (7) reduction in the burden of diseases caused by poverty and patients follow up. SMS, video messages (MMS), phone calls, and designing mobile applications can be used for patient follow-up. Mobile health can be helpful in following up on children’s vaccinations, monitoring patients with chronic diseases, observe of patients’ behavioral changes, and identifying at-risk patients that need care and referral services.
The purpose of this research topic is to collect a series of articles that developed programs using mobile health technology that can facilitate the process of follow-up and patient management to improve the quality of patient care. These insights cover new strategies that use mobile health technology to enable healthcare providers to monitor patients remotely, provide contexts for patient self-care, help patients adhere to treatment plans, provide the possibility to track and record patient's health data through mHealth applications and smart devices, provide real-time feedback and support patients to prevent complications of the disease, and improve patient and healthcare team communication. Although the application of mobile health technology in patient follow-up due to the increasing popularity of mobile applications in medicine cannot be limited to a specific field in the clinical domain. Mobile health can be implemented in many aspects of digital health even integrated into electronic health record systems or in the form of telemedicine programs. Consequently, our goals include any usage of mobile health technology to improve patient care and follow-up.
We welcome the submission of manuscripts including, but not limited to, the following topics:
• Smartphone apps requirement analysis for patient follow-up
• Feasibility study of development mHealth apps regarding patient follow-up
• Design, development and usability evaluation studies of mHealth apps regarding patient follow-up
• mHealth apps related to patient follow-up effect evaluation
• Recent technologies in patient follow-up
• Patient and clinician attitudes regarding patient follow-up apps
• Challenges regarding deployment of patient follow-up apps in real world
• Review of the existing patient follow-up apps in diseases
The purpose of this research topic is to collect a series of articles that developed programs using mobile health technology that can facilitate the process of follow-up and patient management to improve the quality of patient care. These insights cover new strategies that use mobile health technology to enable healthcare providers to monitor patients remotely, provide contexts for patient self-care, help patients adhere to treatment plans, provide the possibility to track and record patient's health data through mHealth applications and smart devices, provide real-time feedback and support patients to prevent complications of the disease, and improve patient and healthcare team communication. Although the application of mobile health technology in patient follow-up due to the increasing popularity of mobile applications in medicine cannot be limited to a specific field in the clinical domain. Mobile health can be implemented in many aspects of digital health even integrated into electronic health record systems or in the form of telemedicine programs. Consequently, our goals include any usage of mobile health technology to improve patient care and follow-up.
We welcome the submission of manuscripts including, but not limited to, the following topics:
• Smartphone apps requirement analysis for patient follow-up
• Feasibility study of development mHealth apps regarding patient follow-up
• Design, development and usability evaluation studies of mHealth apps regarding patient follow-up
• mHealth apps related to patient follow-up effect evaluation
• Recent technologies in patient follow-up
• Patient and clinician attitudes regarding patient follow-up apps
• Challenges regarding deployment of patient follow-up apps in real world
• Review of the existing patient follow-up apps in diseases
Keywords: mHealth, app, Smartphone, follow-up, discharge
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
