ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemics are an international threat to global health and health systems and then healthcare providers. Nurses' managers who are responsible for organizing the nurses and their activities grapple with even more challenges, which are overlooked. This study was conducted to elaborate on the nurse managers' experiences facing the Coronavirus pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study adopted a conventional approach to qualitative content analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 nurse managers working at the University Hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences from April 5, 2020 to June 15, 2020. The interviews continued until data saturation. Data analysis was performed using the method proposed by Lundman and Graneheim. RESULTS: Participants described their experiences about facing COVID-19 pandemic into three categories of 'facing the personnel's mental health', 'Managerial and equipment provision challenges', and 'adaptability and exultation process', with 13 sub-categories. CONCLUSIONS: Dealing with critical conditions could make the frontline managers, and specially nurse managers, face serious challenges. However, in case of proper crisis management andadaptation of sufficient supporting strategies, these threats could turn into an opportunity to exault the individuals and consequently the organizations engaged.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has become a global pandemic, affecting most countries worldwide. Digital health information technologies can be applied in three aspects, namely digital patients, digital devices, and digital clinics, and could be useful in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: Recent reviews have examined the role of digital health in controlling COVID-19 to identify the potential of digital health interventions to fight the disease. However, this study aims to review and analyze the digital technology that is being applied to control the COVID-19 pandemic in the 10 countries with the highest prevalence of the disease. METHODS: For this review, the Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched in August 2020 to retrieve publications from December 2019 to March 15, 2020. Furthermore, the Google search engine was used to identify additional applications of digital health for COVID-19 pandemic control. RESULTS: We included 32 papers in this review that reported 37 digital health applications for COVID-19 control. The most common digital health projects to address COVID-19 were telemedicine visits (11/37, 30%). Digital learning packages for informing people about the disease, geographic information systems and quick response code applications for real-time case tracking, and cloud- or mobile-based systems for self-care and patient tracking were in the second rank of digital tool applications (all 7/37, 19%). The projects were deployed in various European countries and in the United States, Australia, and China. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the potential of available information technologies worldwide in the 21st century, particularly in developed countries, it appears that more digital health products with a higher level of intelligence capability remain to be applied for the management of pandemics and health-related crises.