In the continued efforts for alternate techniques to ease the burden of COVID-19 on frontline health warriors, the use of mHealth technologies has emerged to be a viable option. This is postulated based on a study carried out by a task force including researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory who examined the use of mHealth technologies for monitoring and alleviating the effects of COVID-19 pandemic. mHealth technologies have emerged as a viable option for the monitor of COVID-19 patients and look for risk of symptom escalation for early intervention.
Subdivision of Task Group helped effective analysis of efficacy of mHealth Technology
For the study part, researchers reviewed mHealth technologies in three categories – digital contact tracing technology, wearable sensors, and electronic patient-recorded outcomes screening systems. Meanwhile, subgroups of the task forced looked how these technologies can be deployed in various settings and strategies in fight against the pandemic. For example, one subgroup focused on how wearable sensors are useful for monitoring COVID-19 patients.
For this subgroup, the goal involved identifying sensors that are suitable to notice worsening symptoms in COVID-19 patients who are self-quarantined at home. In fact, data shows a chunk of these patients who exhibit mild symptoms experience a sudden outburst of severe symptoms at home and need hospitalization.
The monitor of these patients with wearable sensors for fine changes, such as in heart rate, body temperature, and oxygen saturation could enable timely help from medical clinicians, thereby improving patient outcomes. Furthermore, these sensors could help monitor patients after being discharged and they return home.
“Meanwhile, the high infection rates of SARS-CoV-2 has put healthcare systems to be at the risk of being inundated with COVID-19 cases, stated one of the research associates of the study.
