Featured Review: Using mobile technologies to promote communication and management of care between healthcare professionals

Many healthcare workers work alone or have little access to colleagues and specialists. This is a common problem for healthcare workers in rural areas or low ‐income countries. One possible solution to this problem is to offer healthcare workers advice and support through mobile technologies that allow healthcare workers to get help from colleagues who are not in the same place. For instance, healthcare workers can contact specialists or colleagues wit h more experience through a phone or the Internet. Healthcare workers can also use their mobile phones or other mobile devices such as tablets.This systematic review fromCochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care looked at if healthcare workers using services through their mobile phones or other mobile devices to communicate with other healthcare workers provide quicker access to healthcare, and improve patient health outcomes. Included in this systematic review are 19 relevant studies, which included more than 5766 people who needed health care. Sixteen studies were from high ‐income countries.Mobile technologies probably slightly decrease the time to deliver health care, as well as the number of face ‐to‐face appointments, when compared with usual care, and probably increase the number of people receiving clinical examinations for some conditions, including an eye exam for people with diabetes. Mobile technologies may have little or no impact on healthcare workers ' and participants ' satisfaction, health st...
Source: Cochrane News and Events - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: news