Will an App Fill the Gap? Innovative Technology to Provide Point-of-Care Information

摘要

The use of mobile devices has become increasingly universal in almost every aspect of life. Whether it is for communication, web browsing, or recreation, they are progressively being seen as complimentary – if not replacing – personal computer as the static predecessor [see the world-wide mobile subscriptions from 2013 ICT facts and figures in Ref. (1); Figure ​FigureA1A1 in Appendix]. But mobile devices are not limited to the personal space. We have now seen their emerging use in healthcare, which encompasses diverse issues to solve clinical problems and promote public health initiatives in pioneering ways. The role of information science in medicine continues to expand as it merges into the mainstream of clinical practice. Since 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) has coined the term mHealth as “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices” (2). The essence of mHealth is the exchange of information remotely, whether it is audio, image, medical record, or commands. Expanding access to the latest medical research at the point-of-care to communicating with physicians globally in real time, medicine is now practiced in a technological era. Pew Research Center indicated that 56% of medical practitioners already use mobile applications in clinical setting (3) while another study estimated that 81% of physicians use smartphone by 2012 (4). This is probably because smartphones and tablets are ideal for the mobile nature of medicine due to their portability, ability to enable targeted treatment, and support patient adherence to medication.