Abstracts by keywords: eHealth
This study addresses the topic of comprehensive healthcare provision through digital health. Using a case study, it examines the use of video consultations for pediatric emergency care in North Rhine-Westphalia. It analyzes technology use and patient satisfaction. Recommendations for optimizing healthcare provision are derived from this.
02.06.2025
With digitalization in the healthcare system, great expectations are tied to increasing the quality of healthcare (Mathews et al., 2019), this particularly applies to diagnostics, prevention and the management of chronic diseases (Gordon, Landman, Zhang & Bates, 2020). Health and medicine apps (GuMA) are given a special role due to the ubiquitous availability of smartphones among the population. However, there has been a broad discussion for some time regarding the still limited evidence of GuMA, which is assessed as heterogeneous in various systematic reviews (Agarwal, Lefevre & Labrique, 2017; Felix et al., 2018; Mathews et al., 2019). In a systematic review by Bayambasuren et al. the authors searched for systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with prescribable GuMAs that were freely available for download (Byambasuren, Sanders, Beller & Glasziou, 2018). The authors define prescriptive apps as apps that are currently available, that are effective and that are used on their own (stand-alone) without the involvement of healthcare professionals. The authors included a total of six systematic reviews in their analysis, from which they in turn extracted 23 RCTs on 22 different GuMAs. Only 11 of these 23 RCTs demonstrated a meaningful effect on health or on selected surrogate endpoints that could possibly be attributed to GuMA. Overall, however, the evidence of effectiveness was of limited quality, which makes it much more difficult for doctors to prescribe these apps (Mathews et al., 2019). The authors also criticized a high risk of bias in both the six included systematic reviews and the 23 extracted RCTs, which also contributes to a limitation of the results. Likewise, positive results in terms of effectiveness can be found in various areas of application. This can be stated, for example, for the self-management of hypertension (Li, Liang, Bu & Hesketh, 2020) or the self-management of mental illnesses (Linardon, Cuijpers, Carlbring, Messer & Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, 2019).
30.03.2021
Relatives such as children, spouses, parents, siblings or friends often play central roles in outpatient and inpatient care. Although most of the discourse is about relatives providing care, relatives also act, for example, as referrers, mediators, information seekers, translators or decision-makers (Bischofberger, 2011). They are thus (regardless of the patient's care needs) essential support in the treatment and management of numerous diseases (Reifegerste, 2019). At the same time, however, they can also disrupt care processes or at least be perceived accordingly by healthcare professionals because, for example, they impede the patient's recovery by providing too much support, their absence makes discharge more difficult, or they confront the doctors with too high expectations (Wilz & Meichsner, 2012 ). However, the majority of them show a high level of motivation to support the patient in coping with illnesses, so that the question arises as to how their motivation can be integrated well into care processes. Although the relatives are omnipresent in health care - be it with positive as well as negative consequences - they are often not considered as a stakeholder of the care. They are “hidden in plain sight” (Wolff & Roter, 2008). In nursing facilities, in paediatrics, oncology or palliative care, they are usually considered to be key participants. In many other areas of care, on the other hand, they are sometimes regarded as an annoying appendage of the patient, ignored or even actively avoided, even if there are hardly any diseases or patients in which they play no role at all (Reifebarste, in press).
28.07.2020
The importance of holistic, cross-sector care concepts and the associated requirements for the daily work of medical and nursing service providers are in a continuous process of change. New forms of care, intersectoral cooperation and process optimization measures are a central component and at the same time the basis of modern patient care. A transfer of information and knowledge related to these circumstances thus becomes a critical factor for the final quality of the service provision and its maximum possible care efficiency [1]. Building on this, new, complex requirements for technical work tools and communication media are developing, which meaningfully complement existing supply structures or even take on a central cross-sectional function [2, 3]. The influence of electronic procedures increases exponentially as soon as sectoral boundaries are broken particularly frequently in a still fragmented care system, large spatial distances have to be overcome or intersectoral cooperation becomes particularly important in terms of treatment success [3, 4]. All of these factors are of central importance, especially for the design of new and information-intensive forms of care within the meaning of the Fifth Social Security Code (Table 1) [5]. Information and communication technology (ICT) solutions must demonstrate the potential here to better meet the current and future challenges in the healthcare system [6, 7] [8] and at the same time sustainably increase quality and cost-effectiveness [1, 3, 9]