Can mHealth Technology Help Mitigate the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

• Published in: IEEE open journal of engineering in medicine and biology Vol. 1; pp. 243 - 248
• Main Authors: Adans-Dester, Catherine P., Bamberg, Stacy, Bertacchi, Francesco P., Caulfield, Brian, Chappie, Kara, Demarchi, Danilo, Erb, M. Kelley, Estrada, Juan, Fabara, Eric E., Freni, Michael, Friedl, Karl E., Ghaffari, Roozbeh, Gill, Geoffrey, Greenberg, Mark S., Hoyt, Reed W., Jovanov, Emil, Kanzler, Christoph M., Katabi, Dina, Kernan, Meredith, Kigin, Colleen, Lee, Sunghoon I., Leonhardt, Steffen, Lovell, Nigel H., Mantilla, Jose, McCoy, Thomas H., Luo, Nell Meosky, Miller, Glenn A., Moore, John, O'Keeffe, Derek, Palmer, Jeffrey, Parisi, Federico, Patel, Shyamal, Po, Jack, Pugliese, Benito L., Quatieri, Thomas, Rahman, Tauhidur, Ramasarma, Nathan, Rogers, John A., Ruiz-Esparza, Guillermo U., Sapienza, Stefano, Schiurring, Gregory, Schwamm, Lee, Shafiee, Hadi, Kelly Silacci, Sara, Sims, Nathaniel M, Talkar, Tanya, Tharion, William J., Toombs, James A., Uschnig, Christopher, Vergara-Diaz, Gloria P., Wacnik, Paul, Wang, May D., Welch, James, Williamson, Lina, Zafonte, Ross, Zai, Adrian, Zhang, Yuan-Ting, Tearney, Guillermo J., Ahmad, Rushdy, Walt, David R., Bonato, Paolo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.01.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Biomedical monitoring; Contact tracing; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; digital contact tracing; Diseases; electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO); Force; mHealth technology; Monitoring; Pandemics; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Task analysis; Task forces; Testing; Wearable sensors; COVID-19; electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO); wearable sensors; digital contact tracing; mHealth technology
• ISSN: 2644-1276; 2644-1276
• DOI: 10.1109/OJEMB.2020.3015141

Goal: The aim of the study herein reported was to review mobile health (mHealth) technologies and explore their use to monitor and mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A Task Force was assembled by recruiting individuals with expertise in electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes (ePRO), wearable sensors, and digital contact tracing technologies. Its members collected and discussed available information and summarized it in a series of reports. Results: The Task Force identified technologies that could be deployed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and would likely be suitable for future pandemics. Criteria for their evaluation were agreed upon and applied to these systems. Conclusions: mHealth technologies are viable options to monitor COVID-19 patients and be used to predict symptom escalation for earlier intervention. These technologies could also be utilized to monitor individuals who are presumed non-infected and enable prediction of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, thus facilitating the prioritization of diagnostic testing.