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The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda

BACKGROUND: Since the advent of smartphones, mHealth has risen to the attention of the health care system as something that could radically change the way health care has been viewed, managed, and delivered to date. This is particularly relevant for cancer, as one of the leading causes of death worl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Nasi, Greta, Cucciniello, Maria, Guerrazzi, Claudia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications Inc. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25720295
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.3764
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author Nasi, Greta
Cucciniello, Maria
Guerrazzi, Claudia
author_facet Nasi, Greta
Cucciniello, Maria
Guerrazzi, Claudia
author_sort Nasi, Greta
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Since the advent of smartphones, mHealth has risen to the attention of the health care system as something that could radically change the way health care has been viewed, managed, and delivered to date. This is particularly relevant for cancer, as one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and for cancer supportive care, since patients and caregivers have key roles in managing side effects. Given adequate knowledge, they are able to expect appropriate assessments and interventions. In this scenario, mHealth has great potential for linking patients, caregivers, and health care professionals; for enabling early detection and intervention; for lowering costs; and achieving better quality of life. Given its great potential, it is important to evaluate the performance of mHealth. This can be considered from several perspectives, of which organizational performance is particularly relevant, since mHealth may increase the productivity of health care providers and as a result even the productivity of health care systems. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to review studies on the evaluation of the performance of mHealth, with particular focus on cancer care and cancer supportive care processes, concentrating on its contribution to organizational performance, as well as identifying some indications for a further research agenda. METHODS: We carried out a review of literature, aimed at identifying studies related to the performance of mHealth in general or focusing on cancer care and cancer supportive care. RESULTS: Our analysis revealed that studies are almost always based on a single dimension of performance. Any evaluations of the performance of mHealth are based on very different methods and measures, with a prevailing focus on issues linked to efficiency. This fails to consider the real contribution that mHealth can offer for improving the performance of health care providers, health care systems, and the quality of life in general. CONCLUSIONS: Further research should start by stating and explaining what is meant by the evaluation of mHealth’s performance and then conduct more in-depth analysis in order to create shared frameworks to specifically identify the different dimensions of mHealth’s performance.
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spelling pubmed-44466592015-06-16 The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda Nasi, Greta Cucciniello, Maria Guerrazzi, Claudia J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Since the advent of smartphones, mHealth has risen to the attention of the health care system as something that could radically change the way health care has been viewed, managed, and delivered to date. This is particularly relevant for cancer, as one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and for cancer supportive care, since patients and caregivers have key roles in managing side effects. Given adequate knowledge, they are able to expect appropriate assessments and interventions. In this scenario, mHealth has great potential for linking patients, caregivers, and health care professionals; for enabling early detection and intervention; for lowering costs; and achieving better quality of life. Given its great potential, it is important to evaluate the performance of mHealth. This can be considered from several perspectives, of which organizational performance is particularly relevant, since mHealth may increase the productivity of health care providers and as a result even the productivity of health care systems. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to review studies on the evaluation of the performance of mHealth, with particular focus on cancer care and cancer supportive care processes, concentrating on its contribution to organizational performance, as well as identifying some indications for a further research agenda. METHODS: We carried out a review of literature, aimed at identifying studies related to the performance of mHealth in general or focusing on cancer care and cancer supportive care. RESULTS: Our analysis revealed that studies are almost always based on a single dimension of performance. Any evaluations of the performance of mHealth are based on very different methods and measures, with a prevailing focus on issues linked to efficiency. This fails to consider the real contribution that mHealth can offer for improving the performance of health care providers, health care systems, and the quality of life in general. CONCLUSIONS: Further research should start by stating and explaining what is meant by the evaluation of mHealth’s performance and then conduct more in-depth analysis in order to create shared frameworks to specifically identify the different dimensions of mHealth’s performance. JMIR Publications Inc. 2015-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4446659/ /pubmed/25720295 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.3764 Text en ©Greta Nasi, Maria Cucciniello, Claudia Guerrazzi. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 13.02.2015. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Nasi, Greta
Cucciniello, Maria
Guerrazzi, Claudia
The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title_full The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title_fullStr The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title_full_unstemmed The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title_short The Performance of mHealth in Cancer Supportive Care: A Research Agenda
title_sort performance of mhealth in cancer supportive care: a research agenda
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25720295
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.3764
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