Smartphone as a Personal, Pervasive Health Informatics Services Platform: Literature Review

Summary

Objectives

The article provides an overview of current trends in personal sensor, signal and imaging informatics, that are based on emerging mobile computing and communications technologies enclosed in a smartphone and enabling the provision of personal, pervasive health informatics services.

Methods

The article reviews examples of these trends from the PubMed and Google scholar literature search engines, which, by no means claim to be complete, as the field is evolving and some recent advances may not be documented yet.

Results

There exist critical technological advances in the surveyed smartphone technologies, employed in provision and improvement of diagnosis, acute and chronic treatment and rehabilitation health services, as well as in education and training of healthcare practitioners. However, the most emerging trend relates to a routine application of these technologies in a prevention/wellness sector, helping its users in self-care to stay healthy.

Conclusions

Smartphone-based personal health informatics services exist, but still have a long way to go to become an everyday, personalized healthcare-provisioning tool in the medical field and in a clinical practice. Key main challenge for their widespread adoption involve lack of user acceptance striving from variable credibility and reliability of applications and solutions as they a) lack evidence-based approach; b) have low levels of medical professional involvement in their design and content; c) are provided in an unreliable way, influencing negatively its usability; and, in some cases, d) being industry-driven, hence exposing bias in information provided, for example towards particular types of treatment or intervention procedures.

 

MissingLinkText

Keywords

Smartphone - mobile phone - cell phone - personal health informatics - wearable technologies

 

 

MissingLinkText

• References

• 1 Entner R. Smartphones to Overtake Feature Phones in US by 2011. Nielsen Wire. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones-to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-2011/ 2012
• 2 Gupta A, Cozza R, Huy TNguyen, Milanesi C, De La Vergne H, Zimmermann A. et al. A. Market Share Analysis: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 4Q10 and 2010. Gartner Report. 2011
• 3 Cozza R. Forecast: Mobile Communications Devices by Open OS, Worldwide. Gartner Report. 2011
• 4 Burdette SD, Herchline TE, Oehler R. Practicing Medicine in a Technological Age: Using Smartphones in Clinical Practice. Clin Infect Dis 2008; 47: 117-22.
• 5 Mobile Future. 2011 MobileYear In Review. http://mobilefuture.org/content/2011_mobile_ year_in_review 2012
• 6 Dey AK, Wac K, Ferreira D, Tassini K, Hong JH, Ramos J. Getting closer: an empirical investigation of the proximity of user to their smart phones, in UbiComp. 2011. ACM; Beijing, China: 163-72.
• 7 Lehmann TM, Aach T, Witte H. Sensor, signal, and image informatics - state of the art and current topics. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics. Assessing Information Technology for Health 2006; 57-67.
• 8 PubMed Digital Library. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 9 ACM Digital Library. http://dl.acm.org/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 10 IEEE Xplore Digital Library. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 11 Google Search Engine. http://www.google.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 12 Qiao J, Liu Z, Xu L, Wu T, Zheng X, Zhu Z. et al. Reliability Analysis of a Smartphone-aided Measurement Method for the Cobb Angle of Scoliosis. J Spinal Disord Tech 2012; Jun; 25 (04) E67-71.
• 13 Rigoberto MM, Toshiyo T, Masaki S. Smart phone as a tool for measuring anticipatory postural adjustments in healthy subjects, a step toward more personalized healthcare. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2010; 82-5.
• 14 Yamada MT, Aoyama S, Mori S, Nishiguchi K, Okamoto T, Ito S. et al. Objective assessment of abnormal gait in patients with rheumatoid arthritis using a smartphone. Rheumatol Int. 2011
• 15 Yamada M, Aoyama T, Okamoto K, Nagai K, Tanaka B, Takemura T. Using a Smartphone while walking: a measure of dual-tasking ability as a falls risk assessment tool. Age Ageing 2011; 40 (04) 516-9.
• 16 Lee RYW, Carlisle AJ. Detection of falls using accelerometers and mobile phone technology. Age and Ageing 2011; 40: 690-6.
• 17 Duchene J, Hewson DJ. Longitudinal evaluation of balance quality using a modified bathroom scale: usability and acceptability. J Telemed Telecare 2011; 17 (08) 421-6.
• 18 Shin SH, du Ro H, Lee OS, Oh JH, Kim SH. Within-day reliability of shoulder range of motion measurement with a smartphone. Man Ther 2012; 17 (04) 298-304.
• 19 Engel H, Huang JJ, Tsao CK, Lin CY, Chou PY, Brey EM. et al. Remote real-time monitoring of free flaps via smartphone photography and 3G wireless Internet: a prospective study evidencing diagnostic accuracy. Microsurgery 2011; 31 (08) 589-95.
• 20 Sprigle S, Nemeth M, Gajjala A. Iterative design and testing of a hand-held, non-contact wound measurement device. J Tissue Viability 2012; 21 (01) 17-26.
• 21 Lamel SA, Haldeman KM, Ely H, Kovarik CL, Pak H, Armstrong AW. Application of mobile teledermatology for skin cancer screening. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2012
• 22 Choi BG, Mukherjee M, Dala P, Young HA, Tracy CM, Katz RJ. et al. Interpretation of remotely downloaded pocket-size cardiac ultrasound images on a web-enabled smartphone: validation against workstation evaluation. J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2011; 24 (12) 1325-30.
• 23 Crawford I, Tiruta C, Kirkpatrick AW, Mitchelson M, Ferguson J. Big brother could actually help quite easily: telementored “just-in-time” telesonography of the FAST over a smartphone. Ann Emerg Med 2011; 58 (03) 312-4.
• 24 Parakh N, Chaturvedi V. Indigenous telemedicine. Indian Pacing Electrophysiol J 2012; 12 (03) 131-2.
• 25 Althubaiti G, Buntic RD, Brooks D. The utility of multimedia in the diagnosis and management of acute and subacute problems in hand surgery. Ann Plast Surg 2012; 68 (04) 389-90.
• 26 Quinley KE, Gormley RH, Ratcliffe SJ, Shih T, Szep Z, Steiner A, Ramogola-Masire D. et al. Use of mobile telemedicine for cervical cancer screening. J Telemed Telecare 2011; 17 (04) 203-9.
• 27 Jaiganesh T, Wright K, Sadana A. Mobile diagnosis: Hamman’s crunch in a primary spontaneous pneumothorax. Emerg Med J 2010; 27 (06) 482-3.
• 28 Mitchell JR, Sharma P, Modi J, Simpson M, Thomas M, Hill MD. et al. A smartphone client-server teleradiology system for primary diagnosis of acute stroke. J Med Internet Res 2011; 13 (02) e31.
• 29 Takao H, Murayama Y, Ishibashi T, Karagiozov KL, Abe T. A new support system using a mobile device (smartphone) for diagnostic image display and treatment of stroke. Stroke 2012; 43 (01) 236-9.
• 30 Chun H, Kang J, Kim KJ, Park KS, Kim HC. IT-based diagnostic instrumentation systems for personalized healthcare services. Stud Health Technol Inform 2005; 117: 180-90.
• 31 Oresko JJ, Duschl H, Cheng AC. A wearable smartphone-based platform for real-time cardiovascular disease detection via electrocardiogram processing. IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed 2010; 14 (03) 734-40.
• 32 Jin Z, Sun Y, Cheng AC. Predicting cardiovascular disease from real-time electrocardiographic monitoring: An adaptive machine learning approach on a cell phone. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2009; 6889-92.
• 33 Wang S, Zhao X, Khimji I, Akbas R, Qiu W, Edwards D. et al. Integration of cell phone imaging with microchip ELISA to detect ovarian cancer HE4 biomarker in urine at the point-of-care. Lab Chip 2011; 11 (20) 3411-8.
• 34 Zhu H, Mavandadi S, Coskun AF, Yaglidere O, Ozcan A. Optofluidic fluorescent imaging cytometry on a cell phone. Anal Chem 2011; 83 (17) 6641-7.
• 35 Zhu H, Yaglidere O, Su TW, Tseng D, Ozcan A. Wide-field fluorescent microscopy on a cell-phone. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2011; 6801-4.
• 36 Stedtfeld RD, Tourlousse DM, Seyrig G, Stedtfeld TM, Kronlein M, Price S. et al. Gene-Z: a device for point of care genetic testing using a smartphone. Lab Chip 2012; 12 (08) 1454-62.
• 37 Shen F, Tan M, Wang Z, Yao M, Xu Z, Wu Y. et al. Integrating silicon nanowire field effect transistor, microfluidics and air sampling techniques for real-time monitoring biological aerosols. Environ Sci Technol 2011; 45 (17) 7473-80.
• 38 Madan A, Cebrian M, Lazer D, Pentland A. Social Sensing for Epidemiological Behavior Change. Ubicomp 2010: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing 2010; 291-300.
• 39 Patrick K, Raab F, Adams MA, Dillon L, Zabinski M, Rock CL. et al. A text message-based intervention for weight loss: randomized controlled trial. J Med Internet Res 2009; 11 (01) 1.
• 40 Lee W, Chae YM, Kim S, Ho SH, Choi I. Evaluation of a mobile phone-based diet game for weight control. J Telemed Telecare 2010; 16 (05) 270-5.
• 41 Free C, Knight R, Robertson S, Whittaker R, Edwards P, Zhou W. et al. Smoking cessation support delivered via mobile phone text messaging (txt2stop): a single-blind, randomised trial. Lancet 2011; 378 9785 49-55.
• 42 Vogel PA, Launes G, Moen EM, Solem S, Hansen B, Haland AT. et al. Videoconference-and cell phone-based cognitive-behavioral therapy of obsessive-compulsive disorder: a case series. JAnxiety Disord 2012; 26 (01) 158-64.
• 43 Kharbanda EO, Stockwell MS, Fox HW, Rickert VI. Text4Health: a qualitative evaluation of parental readiness for text message immunization reminders. Am J Public Health 2009; 99 (12) 2176-8.
• 44 Hardy H, Kumar V, Doros G, Farmer E, Drainoni ML, Rybin D. et al. Randomized controlled trial of a personalized cellular phone reminder system to enhance adherence to antiretroviral therapy. AIDS Patient Care STDS 2011; 25 (03) 153-61.
• 45 Clough BA, Casey LM. Technological adjuncts to increase adherence to therapy: a review. Clin Psychol Rev 2011; 31 (05) 697-710.
• 46 Lawton K, Skjoet P. Assessment of three systems to empower the patient and decrease the risk of adverse drug events. Stud Health Technol Inform. 201; 166. 246-53.
• 47 Quinn CC, Gruber-Baldini AL, Shardell M, Weed K, Clough SS, Peeples M. et al. Mobile diabetes intervention study: testing a personalized treatment/ behavioral communication intervention for blood glucose control. Contemp Clin Trials 2009; 30 (04) 334-46.
• 48 Quinn CC, Shardell MD, Terrin ML, Barr EA, Ballew SH, Gruber-Baldini AL. Cluster-randomized trial of a mobile phone personalized behavioral intervention for blood glucose control. Diabetes Care 2011; 34 (09) 1934-42.
• 49 Morikawa N, Yamasue K, Tochikubo O, Mizushima S. Effect of salt reduction intervention program using an electronic salt sensor and cellular phone on blood pressure among hypertensive workers. Clin Exp Hypertens 2011; 33 (04) 216-22.
• 50 Kristjansdottir OB, Fors EA, Eide E, Finset A, van Dulmen S, Wigers SH. et al. Written online situational feedback via mobile phone to support self-management of chronic widespread pain: a usability study of a Web-based intervention. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2011; 12: 51.
• 51 Singh P, Soyer HP, Wu J, Salmhofer W, Gilmore S. Tele-assessment of Psoriasis Area and Severity Index: a study of the accuracy of digital image capture. Australas J Dermatol 2011; 52 (04) 259-63.
• 52 Depp CA, Mausbach B, Granholm E, Cardenas V, Ben-Zeev D, Patterson TL. et al. Mobile interventions for severe mental illness: design and preliminary data from three approaches. J Nerv Ment Dis 2010; 198 (10) 715-21.
• 53 Puiatti A, Mudda S, Giordano S, Mayora O. Smartphone-centred wearable sensors network for monitoring patients with bipolar disorder. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2011; 3644-7.
• 54 Svoboda E, Richards B. Compensating for anterograde amnesia: a new training method that capitalizes on emerging smartphone technologies. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 2009; 15 (04) 629-38.
• 55 Kramer KM, Hedin DS, Rolkosky DJ. Smartphone based face recognition tool for the blind. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2010; 4538-41.
• 56 Focosi D. Smartphone utilities for infectious diseases specialists. Clin Infect Dis 2008; 47 (09) 1234-5.
• 57 Beastmaster app by PocketKai. http://www.pocketkai.net visited 26 March 2012.
• 58 Wu O, Briggs A, Kemp T, Gray A, MacIntyre K, Rowley J, Willett K. Mobile phone use for contacting emergency services in life-threatening circumstances. J Emerg Med 2012; 42 (03) 291-8 e3..
• 59 Sikka N, Carlin KN, Pines J, Pirri M, Strauss R, Rahimi F. The use of mobile phones for acute wound care: attitudes and opinions of emergency department patients. J Health Commun 2012; 17 Suppl 1: 37-42.
• 60 Paal P, Pircher I, Baur T, Gruber E, Strasak AM, Herff H. et al. Mobile Phone-assisted Basic Life Support Augmented with a Metronome. J Emerg Med. 2012
• 61 Ringh M, Fredman D, Nordberg P, Stark T, Hollenberg J. Mobile phone technology identifies and recruits trained citizens to perform CPR on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims prior to ambulance arrival. Resuscitation 2011; 82 (12) 1514-8.
• 62 Scholten AC, van Manen JG, van der Worp WE, Ijzerman MJ, Doggen CJ. Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation and use of Automated External Defibrillators by laypersons in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest using an SMS alert service. Resuscitation 2011; 82 (10) 1273-8.
• 63 Bolle SR, Johnsen E, Gilbert M. Video calls for dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation can improve the confidence of lay rescuers—surveys after simulated cardiac arrest. J Telemed Telecare 2011; 17 (02) 88-92.
• 64 Magee M, Isakov A, Paradise HT, Sullivan P. Mobile phones and short message service texts to collect situational awareness data during simulated public health critical events. Am J Disaster Med 2011; 06 (06) 379-85.
• 65 Peters FM, Greeff R, Goldstein N, Frey CT. Improving Acetabular Cup Orientation in Total Hip Arthroplasty by Using Smartphone Technology. J Arthroplasty. 2012
• 66 Brusco JM. Using smartphone applications in perioperative practice. AORN J 2010; 92 (05) 503-8.
• 67 Maddison R, Whittaker R, Stewart R, Kerr A, Jiang Y, Kira G. et al. HEART: heart exercise and remote technologies: a randomized controlled trial study protocol. BMC Cardiovasc Disord 2011; 11 (01) 26.
• 68 Worringham C, Rojek A, Stewart I. Development and feasibility of a smartphone, ECG and GPS based system for remotely monitoring exercise in cardiac rehabilitation. PLoS One 2011; 06 (02) e14669.
• 69 Piotrowicz E, Jasionowska A, Banaszak-Bednarczyk M, Gwilkowska J, Piotrowicz R. ECG tele-monitoring during home-based cardiac rehabilitation in heart failure patients. J Telemed Telecare 2012; 18 (04) 193-7.
• 70 Marshall A, Medvedev O, Antonov A. Use of a smartphone for improved self-management of pulmonary rehabilitation. Int J Telemed Appl 2008; 753064.
• 71 Phillippi JC, Wyatt TH. Smartphones in nursing education. Comput Inform Nurs 2011; 29 (08) 449-54.
• 72 Abboudi H. Amin K. Smartphone applications for the urology trainee. BJU Int 2011; 108 (09) 1371-3.
• 73 Makanjuola JK, Bultitude MF. Smartphone applications for the urology trainee. BJU Int 2012; 109 (02) E3-4.
• 74 Franko OI. Smartphone apps for orthopaedic surgeons. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2011; 469 (07) 2042-8.
• 75 Franko OI, Tirrell TF. Smartphone App Use Among Medical Providers in ACGME Training Programs. J Med Syst. 2011
• 76 Amin K. Smartphone applications for the plastic surgery trainee. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2011; 64 (09) 1255-7.
• 77 Choudhri AF, Radvany MG. Initial experience with a handheld device digital imaging and communications in medicine viewer: OsiriX mobile on the iPhone. J Digit Imaging 2011; 24 (02) 184-9.
• 78 Volonte F, Pugin F, Bucher P, Sugimoto M, Ratib O, Morel P. Augmented reality and image overlay navigation with OsiriX in laparoscopic and robotic surgery: not only a matter of fashion. J Hepatobiliary Pancreat Sci 2011; 18 (04) 506-9.
• 79 Dala-Ali BM, Lloyd MA, Al-Abed Y. The uses of the iPhone for surgeons. Surgeo 2011; 09 (01) 44-8.
• 80 Pope L, Silva P, Almeyda R. i-Phone applications for the modern day otolaryngologist. Clin Otolaryngol 2010; 35 (04) 350-4.
• 81 Brunet P, Cuggia M, Le Beux P. Recording and podcasting of lectures for students of medical school. Stud Health Technol Inform 2011; 169: 248-52.
• 82 Muller H, Hanbury A, Boyer C. Aspects of Medical Information Search. Medical Informatics Europe Communication. Oslo, Norway: 2011
• 83 Hanbury A, Boyer C, Gschwandtner M, Müller H. KHRESMOI: towards a multi-lingual search and access system for biomedical information. Med-e-Tel. 2011
• 84 Depeursinge A, Duc S, Eggel I, Muller H. Mobile Medical Visual Information Retrieval. IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed 2012; 16 (01) 53-61.
• 85 Harvard Womens Health Watch, How to put your smartphone ‘on call’; Applications that run on your cell phone put health and wellness aids just a touch away. Harv Womens Health Watch 2010; 18 (04) 2-4.
• 86 AirStrip by AirStrip Technologies Inc. http:// www.airstriptech.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 87 Basis by BASIS Science, Inc. https://mybasis.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 88 HealthBuddy System by Bosch Telehealth. httpwww.bosch-telehealth.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 89 Zio Patch by iRhythm Technologies, Inc. http:// www.irhythmtech.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 90 PiiX Patch by Corventis Inc. http://www. corventis.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 91 MiniMed Paradigm RealTime Revel by Medtronic Inc. http://www.medtronic.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 92 Respiration belt by Kai Medical Inc. http:// www.kaimedical.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 93 Zeo sleep manager by Zeo Inc. http:// www.myzeo.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 94 SleepMinder by BiancaMed Inc. http:// biancamed.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 95 Lark by Lark Technlogies,. http://www.lark.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 96 Inside-Out Medicine Monitor by Proteus. http:// www.proteusbiomed.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 97 Nike+ by Nike Inc. http://www.nikeplus.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 98 Wahoo Fitness by Wahoo Inc. http:// www.wahoofitness.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 99 Withings Body Scale by Withings. http:// www.withings.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 100 Runmeter by Abvio Inc. http://www.abvio.com/ runmeter/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 101 Philips Direct Life by Philips. http:// www.directlife.philips.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 102 Enomondo Sports Tracker by Enomondo, http://www.endomondo.com/. visited on 26 March 2012.
• 103 MotoActv Fitness Tracker by Motorola. http://www.motorola.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 104 Fitbit by Fitbit Inc. http://www.fitbit.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 105 Garmin Tracker by Garmin Ltd. http://connect.garmin.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 106 SenseWear by BodyMedia Inc. http://www.bodymedia.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 107 UP by Jawbone. http://jawbone.com/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 108 Hausmann J, Wac K. Activity Level Estimator on a Commercial Mobile Phone: A Feasibility Study. In IWFAR, PERVASIVE. 2011. SF, CA, USA: ACM.;
• 109 Wac K, Hausmann J, Kayser B. How to keep track of one’s physical activity budget using pervasive technologies. J Appl Physiol 2011; 111 (02) 611-2 discussion 614..
• 110 Jonathan E, Leahy M. Investigating a smartphone imaging unit for photoplethysmography. Physiol Meas 2010; 31 (11) N79-83.
• 111 Huang CC, Lee PY, Chen PY, Liu TY. Design and implementation of a smartphone-based portable ultrasound pulsed-wave Doppler device for blood flow measurement. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 2012; 59 (01) 182-8.
• 112 Wu HH, Lemaire ED, Baddour N. Change-of-state determination to recognize mobility activities using a BlackBerry smartphone. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2011; 5252-5.
• 113 Arab L, Estrin D, Kim DH, Burke J, Goldman J. Feasibility testing of an automated image-capture method to aid dietary recall. Eur J Clin Nutr 2011; 65 (10) 1156-62.
• 114 Chen N, Lee YY, Rabb M, Schatz B. Toward Dietary Assessment via Mobile Phone Video Cameras. AMIA Annu Symp Proc 2010; 106-10.
• 115 Chae J, Woo I, Kim S, Maciejewski R, Zhu F, Delp EJ. et al. Volume Estimation Using Food Specific Shape Templates in Mobile Image-Based Dietary Assessment. Proc SPIE 2011; 7873: 78730K.
• 116 Health Capsule by Chengdu Internet of Things Technology Institute. http://www.citti.com.cn/EN/Projects/ visited on 26 March 2012.
• 117 Gan KO, Allman-Farinelli M. A scientific audit of smartphone applications for the management of obesity. Aust N Z J Public Health 2011; 35 (03) 293-4.
• 118 Rosser BA, Eccleston C. Smartphone applications for pain management. J Telemed Telecare 2011; 17 (06) 308-12.
• 119 DiabetesManager System by WellDoc, www.welldoc.com/. visited on 26 March 2012.
• 120 Stanzel BV, Meyer CH. Smartphones in ophthalmology: Relief or toys for physicians?. Der Ophthalmologe 2012; 109 (01) 8-20.
• 121 Visvanathan A, Hamilton A, Brady RR. Smartphone apps in microbiology-is better regulation required?. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2012
• 122 Hamilton AD, Brady RR. Medical professional involvement in smartphone ‘apps’ in dermatology. Br J Dermatol. 2012
• 123 Visvanathan A, Rodrigues MA, Brady R, Gibb AP. Mobile phone usage in the clinical setting: evidence-based guidelines for all users is urgently required. Am J Infect Control 2012; 40 (01) 86-7.
• 124 Choi JS, Yi B, Park JH, Choi K, Jung J, Park SW. et al. The uses of the smartphone for doctors: an empirical study from samsung medical center. Healthc Inform Res 2011; 17 (02) 131-8.
• 125 Menon A. Confessions of a Wilderness Fellow: I Can’t Live Without My Smartphone, Can You?. Perm J 2011; 15 (01) 68-9.
• 126 Mertz L. Ultrasound? Fetal monitoring? Spectrometer?There’s an app for that!: biomedical smart phone apps are taking healthcare by storm. IEEE Pulse 2012; 03 (02) 16-21.