Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Nov 13, 2020
Date Accepted: Jan 13, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jan 19, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Digital Health Tools For The Management Of Non-Communicable Diseases During And After The Covid-19 Pandemic: Perspectives From Patients And Caregivers
ABSTRACT
Background:
The reduction of face-to-face medical examinations for patients with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to healthcare professionals (HCPs) quickly adopting different strategies to communicate and monitor their patients, including the increased use of digital health tools. However, patient preferences, privacy concerns, lack of regulations or over-regulation, and insufficient evidence on the efficacy of these methods may have hampered the potential positive benefits of using such tools to manage NCDs.
Objective:
The current paper aims to discuss the output of an Advisory Board; specifically, to present the view of patients and caregivers on the role of digital health tools during and after the COVID- 19 pandemic for managing NCD patients, and identify future directions from the patients’ perspectives.
Methods:
As an initiative under the NCD Partnership model of Upjohn, a virtual Advisory Board with patient and caregiver advocates was held on July 28th 2020 to bring together key stakeholders from the public and private sector.
Results:
Several key themes emerged: 1) technology developers should understand that the goals of patients may differ from HCPs and other stakeholders' perspectives; 2) patients, HCPs, caregivers, and other end users need to be involved in the development of digital health solutions in the earliest phase possible to guarantee usability, efficacy, and adoption; 3) tools must be better tailored for people with complex conditions such as multimorbidity, older age, and cognitive or sensory impairment; 4) some patients do not want (or are unable) to utilize digital healthcare solutions, so adequate alternatives should always be available.
Conclusions:
There was consensus that public-private partnership models such as the Upjohn NCD Partnership, can be effective models to foster innovation by synthetizing multiple perspectives, including patients, in the design, development, and implementation of digital (and non-digital) health tools, with the main overall objective of improving the life of NCD patients. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.