Teledermatology in Primary Care in Singapore: Experiences of Family Doctors and Specialists.

Most teledermatology studies focus on patients' satisfaction; fewer focus on the experiences of healthcare professionals. This qualitative study explored healthcare professionals' perceptions of teledermatology used for linking public primary care clinics with the specialist dermatology centre in Singapore. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 family physicians and dermatologists. Six themes were identified: satisfaction with the service; perceived patient benefits; rationale for introducing teledermatology; educational impact; challenges of virtual consultations; and desirable service refinements for the future. Family physicians and dermatologists were positive about the service, but highlighted a need to streamline referral processes and improve the quality of transmitted images. Reduced need for referral to the specialist centre could be achieved by expanding the polyclinic's pharmacopoeia and treatment modalities. This study highlights the benefits of telemedicine for patient, professionals, and healthcare organizations, and these are reassuring given the widespread and rapid introduction of telemedicine through necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Overview of Commercially Available Apps in the Initial Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: It has been 4 months since the discovery of COVID-19, and there have been many measures introduced to curb movements of individuals to stem the spread. There has been an increase in the utilization of web-based technologies for counseling, and for supervision and training, and this has been carefully described in China. Several telehealth initiatives have been highlighted for Australian residents. Smartphone applications have previously been shown to be helpful in times of a crisis. Whilst there have been some examples of how web-based technologies have been used to support individuals who are concerned about or living with COVID-19, we know of no studies or review that have specifically looked at how M-Health technologies have been utilized for COVID-19. Objectives: There might be existing commercially available applications on the commercial stores, or in the published literature. There remains a lack of understanding of the resources that are available, the functionality of these applications, and the evidence base of these applications. Given this, the objective of this content analytical review is in identifying the commercial applications that are available currently for COVID-19, and in exploring their functionalities. Methods: A mobile application search application was used. The search terminologies used were "COVID" and "COVID-19." Keyword search was performed based on the titles of the commercial applications. The search through the database was conducted from the 27th March through to the 18th of April 2020 by two independent authors. Results: A total of 103 applications were identified from the Apple iTunes and Google Play store, respectively; 32 were available on both Apple and Google Play stores. The majority appeared on the commercial stores between March and April 2020, more than 2 months after the first discovery of COVID-19. Some of the common functionalities include the provision of news and information, contact tracking, and self-assessment or diagnosis. Conclusions: This is the first review that has characterized the smartphone applications 4 months after the first discovery of COVID-19.

COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Apps: Analysis of the Readability of Privacy Policies.

Apps that enable contact-tracing are instrumental in mitigating the transmission of COVID-19, but there have been concerns among users about the data collected by these apps and their management. Contact tracing is of paramount importance when dealing with a pandemic, as it allows for rapid identification of cases based on the information collected from infected individuals about other individuals they may have had recent contact with. Advances in digital technology have enabled devices such as mobile phones to be used in the contract-tracing process. However, there is a potential risk of users' personal information and sensitive data being stolen should hackers be in the near vicinity of these devices. Thus, there is a need to develop privacy-preserving apps. Meanwhile, privacy policies that outline the risk associated with the use of contact-tracing apps are needed, in formats that are easily readable and comprehensible by the public. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined the readability of privacy policies of contact-tracings apps. Therefore, we performed a readability analysis to evaluate the comprehensibility of privacy policies of 7 contact-tracing apps currently in use. The contents of the privacy policies of these apps were assessed for readability using Readability Test Tool, a free web-based reliability calculator, which computes scores based on a number of statistics (ie, word count and the number of complex words) and indices (ie, Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade Level, Gunning Fog Index, and Simplified Measure of Gobbledygook index). Our analysis revealed that explanations used in the privacy policies of these apps require a reading grade between 7 and 14, which is considerably higher than the reading ability of the average individual. We believe that improving the readability of privacy policies of apps could be potentially reassuring for users and may help facilitate the increased use of such apps.