Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 2, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 27, 2021 - May 22, 2021
Date Accepted: Jun 20, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Aug 18, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
An overview of technologies implemented during the first wave of COVID-19: A scoping review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Technology has been extensively implemented in the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). While several reviews were conducted regarding technologies used during COVID-19, they were limited either by focusing on a certain technology or feature, or by technology that was proposed rather than implemented.
Objective:
This review aims to explore the features of technologies implemented during the first wave of COVID-19 as reported in the literature.
Methods:
The authors conducted a scoping review following the guidelines of PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Studies were retrieved through searching 8 electronic databases and conducting backward and forward reference list checking. Two reviewers independently assessed the eligibility of studies and extracted data from the included articles. We then used a narrative approach to synthesize the extracted data.
Results:
Of 7,374 retrieved studies, 126 were deemed eligible. Telemedicine was the most common type of technology (85%) implemented in the first wave of COVID-19. The most common mode of telemedicine was synchronous (93.5%). The most common purpose of the technologies was providing consultation (59.5%), followed by following up with patients (35.7%) and monitoring their health status (17.4%). Zoom (17.5%) and WhatsApp (9.5%) were the most common social media and video-conferencing platforms. Both healthcare professionals and health consumers were the most common target users (81.7%). The health condition most frequently targeted by the implemented technologies was COVID-19 (30.2%), followed by any physical health conditions (16.7%) and mental health conditions (10.3%). Technologies were web-based in 84.1% of the included studies. Technologies in the included studies could be used through 11 venues. The most common venue of technologies was mobile applications (68.3%), followed by desktop applications (57.9%), telephone calls (38.9%), and websites (35.7%).
Conclusions:
Technology played a crucial role in mitigating the COVID-19 challenges. Our review did not find other technologies that were implemented during the first wave of COVID-19 (e.g., contact-tracing apps, drones, blockchain). Further, technologies in this review were used for other purposes (e.g., drugs and vaccines discovery, social distancing, and immunity passport). Future research on studies about such technologies and purposes is recommended. Further reviews are required to investigate technologies implemented in the following waves of COVID-19.
Citation
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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.