Tilahun Binyam, Gashu Kassahun Dessie, Mekonnen Zeleke Abebaw, Endehabtu Berhanu Fikadie, Angaw Dessie Abebaw
Department of Health Informatics, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia.
Health System Directorate, Ministry of Health, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Trop Med Health. 2021 Feb 22;49(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s41182-021-00307-1.
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of communicable diseases that principally impact the world's poorest people. The use of digital health technologies is an emerging and promising way to improve disease prevention, diagnosis, case detection, treatment delivery, and patient follow-up and facilitating health facility appointments thereby improving health outcomes. While the growing implementation of digital health technologies is evident, there is a lack of comprehensive evidence on the impact of digital health technologies in the control of NTDs. The main objective of this review was to map different pieces of evidence on the use of digital health technologies for case detection, management, and treatment outcome of the neglected tropical diseases.
We conducted a scoping review guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. The studies were searched using electronic databases like MEDLINE (PubMed), Science Direct, Cochrane Library, and manual searching engines. Two authors extracted the data and compared the results. Discrepancies were resolved by discussion or the third reviewer made the decision. We produced the distribution of geographical locations, residents (setting), types of publications, and digital health technologies used on neglected tropical diseases using tables and graphs.
A total of 996 potentially relevant studies were generated from the initial search, and six studies were found to satisfy all the inclusion criteria and included in the final review. The review found that telehealth, eHealth, mHealth, telemedicine, and electronic health record were used digital health technologies to assess their impact on case detection, disease management, and treatment outcome of neglected tropical diseases. Mobile health was a feasible digital health technology for lymphatic filariasis patient identification and mHealth, eHealth, and electronic health records found to improve the service access, outcomes, and monitoring of visceral leishmaniasis at the community health system.
The scoping review identified that there were limited studies to see the impact of digital health technologies on case detection, management, and treatment outcomes for neglected tropical diseases. We also found that digital health technologies like ehealth, electronic medical linkage, telemed, and telehealth were practicable for patient identification, for treatment and diagnosis through contact with health professionals and teleconsultation, and support in improving health service delivery at the community-health system for managing the disease in both rural and urban settings.
被忽视的热带病（NTDs）是一类主要影响世界上最贫困人口的多种传染病。使用数字健康技术是一种新兴且有前景的方式，可改善疾病预防、诊断、病例发现、治疗提供以及患者随访，并便于预约医疗机构，从而改善健康结果。虽然数字健康技术的应用日益广泛，但缺乏关于其在控制被忽视热带病方面影响的全面证据。本综述的主要目的是梳理有关使用数字健康技术进行被忽视热带病病例发现、管理和治疗结果的不同证据。
我们按照乔安娜·布里格斯研究所的指南进行了一项范围综述。通过电子数据库如MEDLINE（PubMed）、科学Direct、考克兰图书馆以及手动搜索引擎检索研究。两名作者提取数据并比较结果。分歧通过讨论解决，或由第三位评审员做出决定。我们使用表格和图表展示了关于被忽视热带病的地理位置分布、居民（环境）、出版物类型以及所使用的数字健康技术。
初步检索共产生996项潜在相关研究，发现6项研究符合所有纳入标准并纳入最终综述。该综述发现，远程医疗、电子健康、移动健康、远程医学和电子健康记录等数字健康技术被用于评估其对被忽视热带病病例发现、疾病管理和治疗结果的影响。移动健康是用于淋巴丝虫病患者识别的可行数字健康技术，移动健康、电子健康和电子健康记录被发现可改善社区卫生系统中内脏利什曼病的服务获取、结果和监测。
范围综述确定，关于数字健康技术对被忽视热带病病例发现、管理和治疗结果影响的研究有限。我们还发现，电子健康、电子医疗联动、远程医学和远程医疗等数字健康技术在患者识别、通过与卫生专业人员接触和远程会诊进行治疗和诊断以及支持改善社区卫生系统的卫生服务提供以管理城乡环境中的疾病方面是可行的。
