TechnoVascular Health
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to be the number one cause of morbidity and mortality around the world (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). It has been reported that over 17.5 million people died as result of CVD in 2012, which accounts to almost 1/3 (31%) of all deaths within that year (WHO, 2015). As a result, more emphasis has been placed on preventive strategies and health promotion. Thus screening for CVD risk has been recognized as a prime method for preventing morbidity and mortality (Surka et al., 2014). With the advancement of technology and its increasing use in health care, benefits have shown promise in preventing CVD (Surka et al., 2014). The article by Surka et al. (2014) discusses the use of a mobile CVD risk application tool and its benefits as a screening tool versus the paper-based screening assessment.
The basis of this study involved the creation of a CVD risk assessment application based on a paper-based screening tool (Surka et al., 2014). The paper-based screening tool assessed for six risk factors, which included age, sex, diabetes, smoking, systolic blood pressure, and body mass index (Surka et al., 2014). Twenty-four community health workers were chosen and trained to use the mobile application using mobile devices (smartphones) and 537 people were screened (Surka et al., 2014). Results indicated that training time for the mobile application-screening tool (3 hours) was about four times less than the paper-based screening training (12.3 hours) (Surka et al., 2014). The mean screening time for the mobile application (21 minutes) was about 1/3 less than the paper-based screening assessment (35.4 minutes) (Surka et al., 2014). Common themes that rose from this study indicated that the mobile application was easier to use, took less time to screen individuals, and resulted in fewer errors (Surka et al., 2014). Nonetheless, these results indicated that the mobile application was favored over the paper-based screening tool due to its ease of use, time efficiency, and avoidance of errors.
The growth of technology and increasing use in health care shows promise for future health considerations. I am excited for what the future holds and am willing to learn more about how technology can be used as an adjunct for patient care. Have a great weekend everyone!
References
Surka, S., Edirippulige, S., Steyn, K., Gaziano, T., Puoane, T., & Levitt, N. (2014). Evaluating the use of mobile phone technology to enhance cardiovascular disease screening by community health workers. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 83(9), 648-654. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2014.06.008
World Health Organization. (2015). Cardiovascular diseases. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs317/en/
