ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Internet-related technologies have rapidly developed and started to impact the traditional medical practices, which combined wireless communication technology as well as "cloud service" technology with electronic fetal heart monitoring have become a mainstream tendency. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical application value of remote fetal heart rate monitoring mode (RFHRM) on late pregnancy during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: From March 2021 to February 2022, we recruited 800 cases of pregnant women received prenatal examination at the Anhui Province Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital. These pregnant women were randomly divided into two groups: the control group (n= 400), which was given traditional management, and the observation group (n= 400), which received remote monitoring technology on this basis. The two groups were compared with neonatal asphyxia, pregnancy outcomes, Edinburgh postnatal depression scale scores (EPDS), prenatal examination expenses and total time consumption. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in pregnancy outcome and neonatal outcome (P> 0.05). However, total EPDS score of 12.5% pregnant women in the observation group were higher than 12. The TPE group had significantly higher mean EPDS scores compared with the RFHRM group (7.79 ± 3.58 vs 5.10 ± 3.07; P< 0.05). The results showed a significant difference in maternity expenses (2949.83 ± 456.07 vs 2455.37 ± 506.67; P< 0.05) and total time consumption (42.81 ± 7.60 vs 20.43 ± 4.16; P< 0.05) between the groups. CONCLUSION: Remote fetal heart rate monitoring via internet served as an innovative, acceptable, safe and effective reduced-frequency prenatal examination model without affecting the outcome of perinatology of pregnant women with different risk factors.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Digital technology has the potential to transform psychiatry, but its adoption has been limited. The proliferation of telepsychiatry during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the urgency of optimizing technology for clinical practice. Understanding clinician attitudes and preferences is crucial to effective implementation and patient benefit. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to elicit clinician perspectives on emerging digital technology. METHODS: Clinicians in a large psychiatry department (inpatient and outpatient) were invited to complete a web-based survey about their attitudes toward digital technology in practice, focusing on implementation, clinical benefits, and expectations about patients' attitudes. The survey consisted of 23 questions that could be answered on either a 3-point or 5-point Likert scale. We report the frequencies and percentages of responses. RESULTS: In total, 139 clinicians completed the survey-they represent a variety of years of experience, credentials, and diagnostic subspecialties (response rate 69.5%). Overall, 83.4% (n=116) of them stated that digital data could improve their practice, and 23.0% (n=32) of responders reported that they had viewed patients' profiles on social media. Among anticipated benefits, clinicians rated symptom self-tracking (n=101, 72.7%) as well as clinical intervention support (n=90, 64.7%) as most promising. Among anticipated challenges, clinicians mostly expressed concerns over greater time demand (n=123, 88.5%) and whether digital data would be actionable (n=107, 77%). Furthermore, 95.0% (n=132) of clinicians expected their patients to share digital data. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, clinicians reported a positive attitude toward the use of digital data to not only improve patient outcomes but also highlight significant barriers that implementation would need to overcome. Although clinicians' self-reported attitudes about digital technology may not necessarily translate into behavior, our results suggest that technologies that reduce clinician burden and are easily interpretable have the greatest likelihood of uptake.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Recently, innovative technologies for hand hygiene (HH) monitoring have been developed to improve HH adherence in health care. This study explored health care workers' experiences of using an electronic monitoring system to assess HH adherence. METHODS: An electronic monitoring system with digital feedback was installed on a surgical ward and interviews with health care workers using the system (n = 17) were conducted. The data were analyzed according to grounded theory by Strauss and Corbin. RESULTS: Health care workers' experiences were expressed in terms of having trust in the monitoring system, requesting system functionality and ease of use and becoming aware of one's own performance. This resulted in the core category of learning to interact with new technology, summarized as the main strategy when using an electronic monitoring system in clinical settings. The system with digital feedback improved the awareness of HH and individual feedback was preferable to group feedback. CONCLUSIONS: Being involved in using and managing a technical innovation for assessing HH adherence in health care is a process of formulating a strategy for learning to interact with new technology. The importance of inviting health care workers to participate in the co-design of technical innovations is crucial, as it creates both trust in the innovation per se and trust in the process of learning how to use it.