Usability of Mobile Solutions Intended for Diagnostic Images—A Systematic Review

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of mobile devices, they still have not found widespread use in medicine. This is due to the procedures in a given place, differences in the availability of mobile devices between individual institutions or lack of appropriate legal regulations and accreditation by relevant institutions. Numerous studies have been conducted and compared the usability of mobile solutions designed for diagnostic images evaluation on various mobile devices and applications with classic stationary descriptive stations. This study is an attempt to compare the usefulness of currently available mobile applications which are used in the medical industry, focusing on imaging diagnostics. As a consequence of the healthcare sector’s diversity, it is also not possible to design a universal mobile application, which results in a multitude of software available on the market and makes it difficult to reliably compile and compare studies included in this systematic review. Despite these differences, it was possible to identify both positive and negative features of portable methods analyzing radiological images. The mobile application of the golden mean in hospital infrastructure should be widely available, with convenient and simple usage. Our future research will focus on development in the use of mobile devices and applications in the medical sector.

Reimagining Radiology: A Comprehensive Overview of Reviews at the Intersection of Mobile and Domiciliary Radiology over the Last Five Years

“…Of the 21 selected review studies [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ], a total of 14 studies specifically focused on the themes of the review [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 31 ], while the remaining [ 11 , 12 , 19 , 22 , 25 , 29 , 30 ] had a focus on different topics.…”

“…Kufel et al [ 14 ] explore the utilization of mobile devices in medicine, emphasizing the challenges in their widespread adoption. The study compares the usability of mobile applications for diagnostic image evaluation with stationary descriptive stations.…”

Improving Time to Angioembolization for Trauma Care: Novel Smartphone Application

“…Data are transmitted via the phone using “digital imaging and communications in medicine” (DICOM), which is the standard international protocol used for managing and transmitting medical images in health care facilities (Charles, 2018). The combined systems allow multiuser audio/video and texting and the ability to follow the workflow using the smartphone interface (Elijovich et al., 2022; Kufel et al., 2022).…”

“…Current real-time communication between staff is highly dependent on technology, which was slow to develop until the COVID-19 pandemic when isolation and travel restrictions were mandated, hampering communication. New communication avenues were sought and developed by the government not only to occur without travel but also requisite to be Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) compliant (Kufel et al., 2022). The development of new tools allowed sharing of patient information among team members securely on their smartphones or other mobile devices in the clinical setting (Elijovich et al., 2022; Gupta et al., 2020).…”

“…At the same time, the interventional radiologists worked closely with health care information technology groups to advance communication for stroke care. Interventional radiologists requested the development of a smartphone application that could perform three simultaneous functions: (1) a secure, coordinated, HIPAA-compliant text messaging thread for all team members; (2) access to secure, advanced computed tomography (CT) imaging, which the interventional radiologist could view immediately on their smartphone; and (3) the ability of the staff to be notified of the need for emergent mobilization by a toggle of the application (Figurelle et al., 2023; Kufel et al., 2022; Sardenelli, 2017). These three smartphone functions allowed time compression of care.…”