Mobile-Health Technologies for a Child Neuropsychiatry Service: Development and Usability of the Assioma Digital Platform

Abstract

We developed an m-Health platform to support clinical pathways in a child and adolescent neuropsychiatry unit. The Assioma platform was created for tablets, smartphones and PCs, to support data collection and clinical workflow, to promote constant communication between patients, caregivers and clinicians, and to promote active family involvement in day hospital (DH) procedures. Through the Assioma application for tablets, caregivers filled out an anamnestic questionnaire and explored contents on the DH procedures and neurodevelopmental conditions. The application for smartphones included an agenda function for the DH pathways. Through the application for desktops, clinicians could export anamnestic information in text and Excel formats, send real-time notifications, and push relative contents to families’ account. We tested the usability and satisfaction of the Assioma platform in a group of children, caregivers (N = 24) and clinicians (N = 6). Both families and clinicians gave high scores to almost all usability items. The overall satisfaction reached the highest levels at 50% satisfied for families and at 33% for clinicians. Our results indicate that the Assioma platform has the potential to optimize clinical pathways, increasing compliance and clinical efficiency, and to reduce in-person contacts supporting social distancing for clinical pathways, a crucial need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Improving children’s patient experience with a mobile hospital clowning application – Initial user experiences from the clowns’ perspective

“…As PX has risen to consciousness and its effect on the perceived quality of care has been noticed [1][2][3], more attention has been allocated to digital services for improving children's PX [14][15]. In addition to healthcare professionals, hospital clowns interact with children and affect their experiences in hospital environments [16].…”

“…However, hospital clowns use the application only at work. The messaging feature can be considered as a type of solution to answering the children's need for communication channels [15] and ways to alleviate their fears [6]. However, in its current state, the feature has various technical issues that hinder or prevent the sending of messages.…”

“…Although little is known about the PX of child patients and their families, some studies about the PX of children and teens in a hospital context can be found. The focus of these studies has been on the treatment of outpatients [6], experiences of hospitalization [7][8][9][10][11], elements of children's PX [12], development of a PX questionnaire for the context of children's hospital [13,14], and the design and use of digital services for child patients and their families [15][16][17].…”

Exploration of the Deep Impact of Digital Platforms on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activities of Entrepreneurs under the Information Management Framework

“…These projects not only help enterprises to expand their business fields and improve their market competitiveness, but also stimulate employees' innovative spirit and entrepreneurial enthusiasm, injecting new vitality into enterprises [46]. Based on this, this study puts forward the following hypotheses: As mentioned above, entrepreneurial activities on the digital platform are mainly in the form of internal entrepreneurship, which has many obvious advantages [47]. In a highly complex and dynamic external environment, platform-based enterprises are more inclined to entrepreneurial orientation to cope with the rapid changes in the market.…”

Improving the mental health care process in response to Covid-19 pandemic: The case of a penitentiary mental health division

“…Other studies discussed experiences of implementation of digital technologies to adequate and rearrange psychiatric and mental health services during the pandemic. For example, the telepsychiatry service was implemented in psychiatric practice in response to Covid-19 [ 51 ], telehealth service was adopted to convert group-level intensive outpatient psychiatric interventions, an important care for high-risk individuals who needed structured psychotherapy group support [ 52 ]; a m-Health platform was also developed to support clinical pathways in a child and adolescent neuropsychiatry unit [ 53 ].…”