Journal of Medical Internet Research

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Digital consultations between patients and clinicians increased markedly during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions about equity.

Obesity is a leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Artificial intelligence (AI), characterized by machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), has become an indispensable tool in obesity research.

Digital technologies facilitate everyday life, social connectedness, aging at home, well-being, and dignified care. However, older adults are disproportionately excluded from these benefits. Equal digital opportunities, access, and meaningful engagement require an understanding of older adults’ experience across different stages of the technological engagement life cycle from nonuse and initial adoption to sustained use, factors influencing their decisions, and how the experience changes over time.

“Healthy Living for People with type 2 Diabetes (HeLP-Diabetes)” was a theory-based digital self-management intervention for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus that encouraged behavior change using behavior change techniques (BCTs) and promoted self-management. HeLP-Diabetes was effective in reducing HbA1c levels in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). National Health Service (NHS) England commissioned a national rollout of HeLP-Diabetes in routine care (now called “Healthy Living”). Healthy Living presents a unique opportunity to examine the fidelity of the national rollout of an intervention originally tested in an RCT.

Digital health technologies (DHTs), such as electronic health records and prescribing systems, are transforming health care delivery around the world. The quality of information in DHTs is key to the quality and safety of care. We developed a novel clinical information quality (CLIQ) framework to assess the quality of clinical information in DHTs.

The internet provides general users with wide access to medical information. However, regulating and controlling the quality and reliability of the considerable volume of available data is challenging, thus generating concerns about the consequences of inaccurate health care–related documentation. Several tools have been proposed to increase the transparency and overall trustworthiness of medical information present on the web.

Receiving a diagnosis that leads to severe disability in childhood can cause a traumatic experience with long-lasting emotional stress for patients and family members. In recent decades, emerging digital technologies have transformed how patients or caregivers of persons with disabilities manage their health conditions. As a result, information (eg, on treatment and resources) has become widely available to patients and their families. Parents and other caregivers can use digital platforms such as websites or social media to derive social support, usually from other patients and caregivers who share their lived experiences, challenges, and successes on these platforms. However, gaps remain in our understanding of platforms that are most frequently used or preferred among parents and caregivers of children with disabilities. In particular, it is not clear what factors primarily drive or discourage engagement with these digital tools and what the main ethical considerations are in relation to these tools.

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the mainstay obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) treatment; however, poor adherence to CPAP is common. Current guidelines specify 4 hours of CPAP use per night as a target to define adequate treatment adherence. However, effective OSA treatment requires CPAP use during the entire time spent in bed to optimally treat respiratory events and prevent adverse health effects associated with the time spent sleeping without wearing a CPAP device. Nightly sleep patterns vary considerably, making it necessary to measure CPAP adherence relative to the time spent in bed. Weight loss is an important goal for patients with OSA. Tools are required to address these clinical challenges in patients with OSA.

Hyperkalemia is a critical condition, especially in intensive care units. So far, there have been no accurate and noninvasive methods for recognizing hyperkalemia events on ambulatory electrocardiogram monitors.

In a rapidly digitalizing world, the inability of older adults to leverage digital technology has been associated with weaker social connections and poorer health outcomes. Despite the widespread digital adoption in Singapore, older adults, especially those of lower socioeconomic status (SES), still face difficulties in adopting information and communications technology and are typically digitally excluded.

The unannounced standardized patient (USP) is the gold standard for primary health care (PHC) quality assessment but has many restrictions associated with high human and resource costs. Virtual patient (VP) is a valid, low-cost software option for simulating clinical scenarios and is widely used in medical education. It is unclear whether VP can be used to assess the quality of PHC.