The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant strain on medical centers resources. Thus, concerns about the reducing and management of COVID-19 are on the rise, as there is need to provide diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and follow-ups during the pandemic. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has radically and quickly altered how medical practitioners provide care to patients. Medical centers are now responding to COVID-19 through rapid adoption of digital tools and technologies such as telemedicine and virtual care which refer to the delivery of healthcare services digital or at a distance using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for treatment of patients. Telemedicine is expected to deliver timely care while minimizing exposure to protect medical practitioners and patients. Accordingly, a rapid literature review was conducted, and 35 research studies published from 2019 to May 2020 were employed to provide theoretical and practical evidence on the significance of using telemedicine and virtual care for remote treatment of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article provides practical guide based on how to use telemedicine and virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study provides implication on the potentials of consolidating virtual care solutions in the near future towards contributing to integrate digital technologies into healthcare.

As the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread across countries, the need for innovative measures to provide high-quality patient care and manage its spread has become more imperative. Software-based systems such as medical software applications could provide valuable suggestion on health-related information to physicians towards improving quality of life, especially for outpatients (e.g., elderly, immunosuppressed, pregnant women). The use of telemedicine and virtual software offers promising potential in the fight against COVID-19. Accordingly, by means of expedited literature and document review, this paper provides implication on the opportunities, application, and challenges of telemedicine and existing virtual software currently adopted as suitable initiatives for reducing the spread of COVID-19. More importantly, findings present factors that impact adoption of telemedicine. The findings suggest that telemedicine and virtual software are capable of decreasing emergency room visits, safeguarding healthcare resources, and lessening the spread of COVID-19 by remotely treating patients during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Telemedicine and eHealth refer to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) embedded in software programs with highspeed telecommunications systems for delivery, management, and monitoring of healthcare services. Application of telemedicine have become timely while providing great potentials to protect both medical practitioners and patients, as well as limit social mobility of patients contributing to reduce the spread of the virus. This study employs data from the existing literature to describe the application of telemedicine and eHealth as a proactive measure to improve clinical care. Findings from this study present the significance of telemedicine and current applications adopted during the pandemic. More importantly, the findings present practical application of telemedicine and eHealth for clinical services. Also, polices initiated across the world to promote management of COVID-19 are discussed. Respectively, this study suggests that telemedicine and eHealth can be adopted in times of health emergency, as a convenient, safe, scalable, effective, and green method of providing clinical care.

3/19/2020 Exploring the role of blended learning for teaching and learning effectiveness in institutions of higher learning: An empirical investigation |…

Technological innovations such as blended learning (BL) are rapidly changing teaching and learning in higher education, where BL integrates face to face teaching with web based learning. Thus, as polices related to BL increases, it is required to explore the theoretical foundation of BL studies and how BL were adopted and implemented in relation to students, lecturers and administration. However, only fewer studies have focused on exploring the constructs and factors related to BL adoption by considering the students, lecturers and administration concurrently. Likewise, prior research neglects to explore what practices are involved for BL implementation. Accordingly, this study systematically reviews, synthesizes, and provides meta-analysis of 94 BL research articles published from 2004 to 2020 to present the theoretical foundation of BL adoption and implementation in higher education. The main findings of this study present the constructs and factors that influence students, lecturers and administration towards adopting BL in higher education. Moreover, findings suggest that the BL practices to be implemented comprises of face-to-face, activities, information, resources, assessment, and feedback for students and technology, pedagogy, content, and knowledge for lecturers. Besides, the review reveals that the ad hoc, technology acceptance model, information system success model, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, and lastly diffusion of innovations theories are the mostly employed theories employed by prior studies to explore BL adoption. Findings from this study has implications for student, lecturers and administrators by providing insights into the theoretical foundation of BL adoption and implementation in higher education.