Over a third of adults go online to diagnose their health condition. Direct-to-consumer (DTC), interactive, diagnostic apps with information personalization capabilities beyond those of static search engines are rapidly proliferating. While these apps promise faster, more convenient and more accurate information to improve diagnosis, little is known about the state of the evidence on their performance or the methods used to evaluate them. We conducted a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and gray literature for the period January 1, 2014–June 30, 2017. We found that the largest category of evaluations involved symptom checkers that applied algorithms to user-answered questions, followed by sensor-driven apps that applied algorithms to smartphone photos, with a handful of evaluations examining crowdsourcing. The most common clinical areas evaluated were dermatology and general diagnostic and triage advice for a range of conditions. Evaluations were highly variable in methodology and conclusions, with about half describing app characteristics and half examining actual performance. Apps were found to vary widely in functionality, accuracy, safety and effectiveness, although the usefulness of this evidence was limited by a frequent failure to provide results by named individual app. Overall, the current evidence base on DTC, interactive diagnostic apps is sparse in scope, uneven in the information provided and inconclusive with respect to safety and effectiveness, with no studies of clinical risks and benefits involving real-world consumer use. Given that DTC diagnostic apps are rapidly evolving, rigorous and standardized evaluations are essential to inform decisions by clinicians, patients, policymakers and other stakeholders.

In patient care today, teams of practitioners from various disciplines must coordinate their efforts in order to deliver care successfully. Frontline nurses and physicians must interact with social workers, therapists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and others to develop and carry out coordinated plans of care. Also, clinical team members must communicate with patients and their families in language that can be understood and acted upon. In support of these goals, JCAHO standards require patient care to be planned and provided in an interdisciplinary, collaborative manner. As hospital units develop processes for collaborative care in complex environments such as post-surgery and critical care units, it is important to understand what constitutes success for these processes and how they can be enabled and supported. This report documents a series of field visits and simulations designed to observe, videotape, and interview collaborative care team members, patients, and family members engaged in varying forms of collaborative practice. This ongoing research is being conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of medical and social scientists with a shared goal of studying and supporting collaborative care processes.

Healthcare is a knowledge-intensive service provided by professionals, such as medical doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Clinical-pathways are used by many healthcare organizations (HCOs) as a tool for performing the healthcare process, sharing and utilizing knowledge from different professionals. In this paper, case studies were performed at two HCOs that use clinical-pathways actively in the healthcare process. Theoretical model construction, sharing, utilization, and creation of the knowledge by different professionals, were tested by the case study of two HCOs which use clinical pathways actively. The theoretical model was a knowledge creation model which creates new knowledge continuously. In this theoretical model, clinical-pathways are suggested to be an effective tool for knowledge management in healthcare.

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