Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Cardio
Date Submitted: Jun 26, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 26, 2022 - Aug 21, 2022
Date Accepted: Sep 29, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Evaluating healthcare provider perspectives on the use of mobile apps to support patients with heart failure manage-ment: A qualitative descriptive study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Nonadherence to diet and medical therapies in heart failure (HF) contributes to poor HF outcomes. Mobile apps may be a promising way to improve adherence as they increase knowledge and behaviour change via education and monitoring. Well-designed apps with input from healthcare providers (HCPs) can lead to successful adoption of such apps in practice. However, little is known about HCPs perspectives on the use of mobile apps to support HF management.
Objective:
To determine HCPs perspectives (needs, motivations, challenges) on the use of mobile apps to support patients with HF management.
Methods:
A qualitative descriptive study using one-on-one semi-structured interviews, informed by the Diffusion of Innovation theory, was conducted among HF HCPs, including cardiologists, nurses and nurse practitioners. Transcripts were independently coded by two researchers and analyzed using content analysis.
Results:
HCPs (n=21, 8 cardiologists, 6 nurses, 7 nurse practitioners), identified challenges and opportunities for app adoption across five themes: 1) ‘Participant-perceived factors that impact app adoption’, including patient age, tech-savviness, technology access and ease of use 2) ‘Improved delivery of care’, apps can support remote care, collect, share, and assess health information, identify adverse events, prevent hospitalizations, and limit clinic visits. 3) ‘Facilitating patient engagement in care’, apps can provide feedback and reinforcement, facilitate connection and communication among patients and HCPs, support monitoring and track self-care. 4) ‘Providing patient support through education’, apps can provide HF-related information (i.e., diet, medications). 5) ‘Participant views on app features for their patients’, HCPs felt useful apps would have reminders/alarms and interactive elements (gamification, food scanner, quizzes).
Conclusions:
HCPs had positive views on the use of mobile apps to support patients with HF management. These findings can inform effective development and implementation strategies of HF management apps in clinical practice.
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.