Cited by 1,184Mobile Health and mHealth ApplicationsMobile Learning in EducationMobile and Web Applications

A Systematic Review of Healthcare Applications for Smartphones

Open access
Mosa, Abu Saleh Mohammad, Yoo, Illhoi, Sheets, Lincoln·2012·BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Abstract

Background: Advanced mobile communications and portable computation are now combined in handheld devices called “smartphones”, which are also capable of running third-party software. The number of smartphone users is growing rapidly, including among healthcare professionals. The purpose of this study was to classify smartphone-based healthcare technologies as discussed in academic literature according to their functionalities, and summarize articles in each category. Methods: In April 2011, MEDLINE was searched to identify articles that discussed the design, development, evaluation, or use of smartphone-based software for healthcare professionals, medical or nursing students, or patients. A total of 55 articles discussing 83 applications were selected for this study from 2,894 articles initially obtained from the MEDLINE searches. Results: A total of 83 applications were documented: 57 applications for healthcare professionals focusing on disease diagnosis (21), drug reference (6), medical calculators (8), literature search (6), clinical communication (3), Hospital Information System (HIS) client applications (4), medical training (2) and general healthcare applications (7); 11 applications for medical or nursing students focusing on medical education; and 15 applications for patients focusing on disease management with chronic illness (6), ENT-related (4), fall-related (3), and two other conditions (2). The disease diagnosis, drug reference, and medical calculator applications were reported as most useful by healthcare professionals and medical or nursing students. Conclusions: Many medical applications for smartphones have been developed and widely used by health professionals and patients. The use of smartphones is getting more attention in healthcare day by day. Medical applications make smartphones useful tools in the practice of evidence-based medicine at the point of care, in addition to their use in mobile clinical communication. Also, smartphones can play a very important role in patient education, disease self-management, and remote monitoring of patients.

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  • The number of papers focusing on reviewing and evaluating tinnitus-related smartphone apps is underwhelming.

    “Generally, health care apps have been exhaustively discussed and reviewed in the literature [58]; however, the number of papers that focus on reviewing and evaluating tinnitus-related smartphone apps is underwhelming.”

    From Smartphone and mobile health apps for tinnitus: Systematic identification, analysis, and assessment (2020) · cites this paper as [58]

    The Methods and Results describe a systematic review of 55 articles covering 83 healthcare smartphone applications, supporting the citation’s point that such apps have been reviewed in the literature. But the Limitations say most available apps had not been discussed in medical literature, so “exhaustively discussed” overstates the source. The sentence’s separate observation about the scarcity of tinnitus-app papers is not attributed to this citation. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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3 of the 122 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. US Mobile Year in Review [ http://www2.comscore.com/l/1552/ileYearinReview2010Webinar-pdf/QOZR3]
  2. Knowledge on call: Physicians increasingly are discovering smartphones serve a purpose beyond being a convenient communication gadget [ http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/01/05/plus/bisa0105.pdf]
  3. M B Opportunities and Challenges when Applying Mobile Technology in Health Care Proceedings of Ume°a’s 14th Student Conference in Computing Science 2010 UME°A, SWEDEN: UME°A UNIVERSITY 1 12
  4. Zhang T Wang J Liu P Hou J Fall detection by embedding an accelerometer in cellphone and using KFD algorithm International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security: IJCSNS 2006 6 277 284
  5. de Buenaga M Gachet D Maña MJ de la Villa M Mata J Clustering and Summarizing Medical Documents to Improve Mobile Retrieval SIGIR 2008 Workshop on Mobile Information Retrieval 2008 Singapore 54 57
  6. Hoyt RE Cruz RW Hoyt RE Chapter 11: Mobile Technology. In Medical Informatics Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals 2010 4th Lulu Enterprises Inc 199 217
  7. Introducing the T-Mobile G2 with Google — the First Smartphone Delivering 4G Speeds on T-Mobile’s Super-Fast HSPA+ Network [ http://www.htc.com/us/press/introducing-the-t-mobile-g2-with-google--the-first-smartphone-delivering-4g-speeds-on-t-mobiles-super-fast-hspa-network/19]

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Authors
Mosa, A. S. M., Yoo, I., & Sheets, L.
Affiliations
University of Missouri (US)
Corresponding author
Yoo, Illhoi
Venue
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Published
2012-07-10
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
67-67
ISSN
1472-6947 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2168217134
Cited by
1,184
References
122
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 88 · 2021: 102 · 2020: 108 · 2019: 92 · 2018: 110 · 2017: 132 · 2016: 122 · 2015: 95 · 2014: 69 · 2013: 41 · 2012: 3
FWCI
10.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile Learning in Education
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile and Web Applications
Keywords
mobile application, mobile health, healthcare workers, medical students, nursing students, disease diagnosis, drug reference, medical calculators, clinical communication, hospital information systems, medical education, patient self-management, chronic disease, patient education, remote patient monitoring, evidence-based medicine
MeSH terms
Medical Informatics Applications, Cell Phone

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