Question

Think about privacy concerns in relationship to mobile access in your own clinical practice in the workplace.

• In what ways might the mobile access of healthcare informatics systems be used in your clinical setting?
• What concerns would you have about the mobile access of healthcare informatics systems in your clinical setting?

Answer 1

Ans) Mobile devices can also be used to access CDSSs installed on desktop computers in clinical settings to aid in diagnosis and treatment decisions. Mobile apps can also help clinicians identify the appropriate scans or tests to order, decreasing unnecessary procedures and reducing cost of care.

- Apps may have deficiencies and limits. App development, support, maintenance and regular updating may entail significant costs. Interactions may require substantial effort. Advice may not align with users’ expectations or life activities. Not all content may benefit all users, and getting users to download and engage with mobile apps is an art. Health disparities and low health literacy and numeracy may negatively affect use.

- Furthermore, many smartphone apps are not based on behavioural change theories or guidelines.

- Relatively few studies exist on the effectiveness (clinically and cost-wise) of mobile smartphone apps and more research is needed to properly address this issue. Assessment of some aspects of specific apps or types of apps may require a full blown clinical trial or evaluation study and the necessary resources to conduct it, which is well beyond what can be evaluated by a single person or a few people using a checklist of criteria to look for.

- Software applications (apps) and ‘software as a medical device’ are not new concepts. But the mobile Social Web is now enabling millions of people to more easily share, rate, recommend, and find software applications about almost any topic under the sun (‘there is an app for that’). Before the advent of smartphones, small-form-factor tablets and the latest generations of mobile operating systems and Web browsers that support the concept of apps and associated ‘app stores’, downloading and installing softwar and freeware was always possible, but not as easy or as popular.