healthcare technology

Neglected tropical diseases affect more than a billion people and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. In spite of this, most people still know very little about them.

 

A study performed by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) provided eight recommendations for improving the online technology to help with the treatment and diagnosis of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

The goal was to standardize and improve the apps developed for controlling and monitoring neglected tropical diseases of the skin.

 

The analysis was performed by UOC researchers Carme Carrion and Marta Aymerich from the eHealth Lab and Noemí Robles from the eHealth Center, together with José Antonio Ruiz Postigo from the World Health Organization and Oriol Solà de Morales from the Health Innovation Technology Transfer Foundation.  In the study, the authors looked at the context of the existing apps and identified their weaknesses.

 

The recommendations are outlined in the infographic prepared by the UOC eHealth Center, which is attached with this post.

 

The recommendations provide an initial base for improving the efficiency in the development and social uptake of apps designed for the control and treatment of NTDs.

 

These recommendations are summarized in eight points

:

• Nobody should be left out: patients from all regions should be selected to benefit from the proposed interventions. This requires translating the tools into different languages.
• Users must have control: the interventions' end users (health professionals and patients) must be given sufficient training to improve their digital literacy and make effective use of the tools that are provided.
• Complexity must be adequately catered for: integrating e-health-related technology is a complicated process that should be considered in depth both before and during implementation.
• Utility and simplicity must be there, and, what is more, they must be seen: health professionals, patients and healthy citizens must be able to understand the proposed technology's utility and ease of use. In other words, it must be a facilitator, not a barrier.
• The technological requirements must be considered from the beginning: the availability of adequate mobile devices, the potential problems with electricity supply or internet networks, and other technical issues must be considered as part of a comprehensive strategy with a specific objective.
• A long-term m-health platform must be established: an m-health intervention's success depends on the existence of a platform that makes it easier not only to implement the tool but also guarantees its sustained, effective use.
• Split-level processes are required to improve: in the early stages of implementation of an m-health system, the processes must be divided into two levels in order, first, to refine the process and, then, to optimize it iteratively.
• The tool must meet the stated needs: interventions are integrated in a specific health service; accordingly, additional tools should be considered as required.

 

read more at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-apps-neglected-tropical-diseases.html