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The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews

BACKGROUND: Several systematic reviews evaluating the use of telemedicine by clinicians, patients, and health authorities to improve the delivery of care in the 53 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region have been conducted in recent years. However, a study summarizing t...

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Autores principales: Saigí-Rubió, Francesc, Borges do Nascimento, Israel Júnior, Robles, Noemí, Ivanovska, Keti, Katz, Che, Azzopardi-Muscat, Natasha, Novillo Ortiz, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9650581/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36301602
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40877
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author Saigí-Rubió, Francesc
Borges do Nascimento, Israel Júnior
Robles, Noemí
Ivanovska, Keti
Katz, Che
Azzopardi-Muscat, Natasha
Novillo Ortiz, David
author_facet Saigí-Rubió, Francesc
Borges do Nascimento, Israel Júnior
Robles, Noemí
Ivanovska, Keti
Katz, Che
Azzopardi-Muscat, Natasha
Novillo Ortiz, David
author_sort Saigí-Rubió, Francesc
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Several systematic reviews evaluating the use of telemedicine by clinicians, patients, and health authorities to improve the delivery of care in the 53 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region have been conducted in recent years. However, a study summarizing the findings of these reviews has not been conducted. OBJECTIVE: This overview of systematic reviews aimed to summarize findings regarding the use of telemedicine across the 53 member states and identify the medical fields and levels of care in and at which the effectiveness, feasibility, and applicability of telemedicine have been demonstrated. The barriers to and facilitators of telemedicine use were also evaluated and collated to help with the design and implementation of telemedicine interventions. METHODS: Through a comprehensive systematic evaluation of the published and unpublished literature, we extracted clinical, epidemiological, and technology-related data from each review included in the study. We focused on evaluating the barriers to and facilitators of the use of telemedicine apps across the 53 member states considered. We rated the methodological quality of each of the included reviews based on A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Review 2 approach and judged the overall certainty of evidence by using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations methodology. The entire process was performed by 2 independent authors. RESULTS: This overview drew on data from >2239 primary studies, with >20,000 enrolled patients in total, within the WHO European Region. On the basis of data from randomized trials, observational studies, and economic evaluations from several countries, the results show a clear benefit of telemedicine technologies in the screening, diagnosis, management, treatment, and long-term follow-up of a series of chronic diseases. However, we were unable to pool the results into a reliable numeric parameter because of the high heterogeneity of intervention methodologies, scheduling, primary study design discrepancies, settings, and geographical locations. In addition to the clinical outcomes of the interventions, the social and economic outcomes are highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: The application of telemedicine is well established across countries in the WHO European Region; however, some countries could still benefit from the many uses of these digital solutions. Barriers related to users, technology, and infrastructure were the largest. Conversely, the provision of health services using technological devices was found to significantly enhance patients’ clinical outcomes, improve the long-term follow-up of patients by medical professionals, and offer logistical benefits for both patients and health workers. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews) CRD42022309375; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=309375
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spelling pubmed-96505812022-11-15 The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews Saigí-Rubió, Francesc Borges do Nascimento, Israel Júnior Robles, Noemí Ivanovska, Keti Katz, Che Azzopardi-Muscat, Natasha Novillo Ortiz, David J Med Internet Res Review BACKGROUND: Several systematic reviews evaluating the use of telemedicine by clinicians, patients, and health authorities to improve the delivery of care in the 53 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region have been conducted in recent years. However, a study summarizing the findings of these reviews has not been conducted. OBJECTIVE: This overview of systematic reviews aimed to summarize findings regarding the use of telemedicine across the 53 member states and identify the medical fields and levels of care in and at which the effectiveness, feasibility, and applicability of telemedicine have been demonstrated. The barriers to and facilitators of telemedicine use were also evaluated and collated to help with the design and implementation of telemedicine interventions. METHODS: Through a comprehensive systematic evaluation of the published and unpublished literature, we extracted clinical, epidemiological, and technology-related data from each review included in the study. We focused on evaluating the barriers to and facilitators of the use of telemedicine apps across the 53 member states considered. We rated the methodological quality of each of the included reviews based on A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Review 2 approach and judged the overall certainty of evidence by using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations methodology. The entire process was performed by 2 independent authors. RESULTS: This overview drew on data from >2239 primary studies, with >20,000 enrolled patients in total, within the WHO European Region. On the basis of data from randomized trials, observational studies, and economic evaluations from several countries, the results show a clear benefit of telemedicine technologies in the screening, diagnosis, management, treatment, and long-term follow-up of a series of chronic diseases. However, we were unable to pool the results into a reliable numeric parameter because of the high heterogeneity of intervention methodologies, scheduling, primary study design discrepancies, settings, and geographical locations. In addition to the clinical outcomes of the interventions, the social and economic outcomes are highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: The application of telemedicine is well established across countries in the WHO European Region; however, some countries could still benefit from the many uses of these digital solutions. Barriers related to users, technology, and infrastructure were the largest. Conversely, the provision of health services using technological devices was found to significantly enhance patients’ clinical outcomes, improve the long-term follow-up of patients by medical professionals, and offer logistical benefits for both patients and health workers. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews) CRD42022309375; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=309375 JMIR Publications 2022-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9650581/ /pubmed/36301602 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40877 Text en ©Francesc Saigí-Rubió, Israel Júnior Borges do Nascimento, Noemí Robles, Keti Ivanovska, Che Katz, Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, David Novillo Ortiz. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 27.10.2022. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), 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 https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Review
Saigí-Rubió, Francesc
Borges do Nascimento, Israel Júnior
Robles, Noemí
Ivanovska, Keti
Katz, Che
Azzopardi-Muscat, Natasha
Novillo Ortiz, David
The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title_full The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title_fullStr The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title_full_unstemmed The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title_short The Current Status of Telemedicine Technology Use Across the World Health Organization European Region: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
title_sort current status of telemedicine technology use across the world health organization european region: an overview of systematic reviews
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9650581/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36301602
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/40877
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