The Effectiveness of mHealth and eHealth Tools in Improving Provider Knowledge, Confidence, and Behaviors Related to Cancer Detection, Treatment, and Survivorship Care: a Systematic Review

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) and eHealth interventions have demonstrated potential to improve cancer care delivery and disease management by increasing access to health information and health management skills. However, there is a need to better understand the overall impact of these interventions in improving cancer care and to identify best practices to support intervention adoption. Overall, this review intended to systematically catalogue the recent body of cancer-based mHealth and eHealth education and training interventions and assess the effectiveness of these interventions in increasing health care professionals’ knowledge, confidence, and behaviors related to the delivery of care along the cancer continuum. Our initial search yielded 135 articles, and our full review included 23 articles. We abstracted descriptive data for each of the 23 studies, including an overview of interventions (i.e., intended intervention recipients, location of delivery, topic of focus), study methods (i.e., design, sampling approach, sample size), and outcome measures. Almost all the studies reported knowledge gain as an outcome of the education interventions, whereas only half assessed provider confidence or behavior change. We conclude that there is some evidence that mHealth and eHealth interventions lead to improvements in cancer care delivery, but this is not a consistent finding across the studies reviewed. Our findings also identify gaps that should be addressed in future research, offer guidance on the utility of mHealth and eHealth interventions, and provide a roadmap for addressing these gaps. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13187-021-01961-z.

eHealth Interventions for Dutch Cancer Care: Systematic Review Using the Triple Aim Lens

“…Finally, it is notable that some domains and dimensions are primarily omitted from the studies, such as per capita costs and participation. The scarcity of per capita cost-related study outcomes is in line with previous research on the effectiveness of eHealth interventions in cancer detection, treatment, and survivorship care [ 134 ]. As health care costs are increasing in most countries, organizations are actively trying to develop solutions to curb health care expenditures while maintaining access to and harnessing the quality and safety of health care [ 135 ].…”

Digital health and telehealth in cancer care: a scoping review of reviews

“…Five reviews did specifically address digital health and telehealth practices to support interdisciplinary collaboration and continuing education for oncology providers, with the end goal of improving cancer care for patients. 25 , 49 , 82 , 109 , 127 However, no reviews addressed tools for oncology health-care provider wellbeing. Given the serious toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-care workers, 160 there is an opportunity to establish viable digital health and telehealth interventions to mitigate occupational-health effects under the ongoing pandemic conditions.…”

Implementation of daily patient‐reported outcome measurements to support children with cancer

“…Despite the proven demand, there is no PROM available or in clinical usage for daily symptom monitoring 5 . Therefore, even studies with small numbers of participants (particularly with children) are needed and it has been demonstrated that they can have meaningful impact on refinements of mHealth tool's development 25–28 . Current practice in cancer treatment includes administration of chemotherapy in the day clinic or, if necessary, on the ward for several days and discharging the patient whenever possible, so that most of the time can be spent at home.…”