Center for Innovative Drug Development and Therapeutic Trials for Africa (CDT-Africa), College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Department of Public Health, College of Health Science, Arsi University, Asella, Ethiopia.
Front Public Health. 2023 Feb 15;11:942703. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.942703. eCollection 2023.
COVID-19 is one of the most deadly diseases to have stricken us in recent decades. In the fight against this disease, governments and stakeholders require all the assistance they can get from various systems, including digital health interventions. Digital health technologies are supporting the tracking of the COVID-19 outbreak, diagnosing patients, expediting the process of finding potential medicines and vaccines, and disinfecting the environment, The establishment of electronic medical and health records, computerized clinical decision support systems, telemedicine, and mobile health have shown the potential to strengthen the healthcare system. Recently, these technologies have aided the health sector in a variety of ways, including prevention, early diagnosis, treatment adherence, medication safety, care coordination, documentation, data management, outbreak tracking, and pandemic surveillance. On the other hand, implementation of such technologies has questions of cost, compatibility with existing systems, disruption in patient-provider interactions, and sustainability, calling for more evidence on clinical utility and economic evaluations to help shape the next generation of healthcare. This paper argues how digital health interventions assist in the fight against COVID-19 and their opportunities, implications, and limitations.
COVID-19 是近几十年来袭击我们的最致命疾病之一。在抗击这种疾病的过程中,政府和利益相关者需要从包括数字健康干预在内的各种系统中获得所有帮助。数字健康技术正在支持 COVID-19 疫情的追踪、诊断患者、加速寻找潜在药物和疫苗的过程以及环境消毒。电子医疗和健康记录、计算机化临床决策支持系统、远程医疗和移动医疗已显示出加强医疗体系的潜力。最近,这些技术以多种方式帮助了卫生部门,包括预防、早期诊断、治疗依从性、药物安全、护理协调、文件记录、数据管理、疫情追踪和大流行监测。另一方面,这些技术的实施存在成本、与现有系统的兼容性、患者与提供者互动的中断以及可持续性等问题,因此需要更多关于临床实用性和经济评估的证据,以帮助塑造下一代医疗保健。本文讨论了数字健康干预措施如何帮助抗击 COVID-19 以及它们的机会、影响和局限性。