Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Oct 15, 2020
Date Accepted: May 18, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: May 25, 2021
Digital solutions to alleviate the burden on health systems during a public healthcare crisis: COVID-19 as an opportunity
ABSTRACT
Background:
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has generated unprecedented and sustained health management challenges worldwide. Healthcare systems continue to struggle to support the needs of the majority of infected individuals that are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.
Objective:
To rapidly and safely address gaps in the healthcare support available from initially, and repeatedly, overwhelmed providers and systems. We sought to create a digital healthcare solution that could appropriately monitor and manage needs of individuals requiring self-isolation due to suspected or diagnosed COVID-19 with mild to moderate symptoms.
Methods:
A theoretically grounded multiplatform digital healthcare application was created to safely monitor and support this group of affected individuals based on rapidly emerging scientific guidance. The solution – COVIDCare – was designed to address this need and to be flexible enough to adapt to the evolving management requirements of various stakeholders to reduce COVID-19 infection rates, acute hospitalizations and mortality.
Results:
The COVIDCare multiplatform solution provides a hybrid model of care that includes mobile and online platforms, paired with direct clinician input. The patient mobile application includes four program components: 1) symptom management, 2) patient education, 3) wellbeing support, and 4) communication with healthcare providers. The clinician web-based portal includes secure, bi-directional, chat communication between the patient and clinician.
Conclusions:
COVIDCare can flexibly address strategic needs of strained healthcare systems and is customizable to meet the needs of employers and public health stakeholders who continue to manage the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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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.