An Early Warning Mobile Health Screening and Risk Scoring App for Preventing In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 by Health Care Workers: Development and Feasibility Study
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
JMIR Formative Research
Abstract
Hospitals have been identified as very high-risk places for COVID-19 transmission between health care workers
and patients who do not have COVID-19. Health care workers are the most at-risk population to contract and transmit the infection,
especially to already vulnerable patients who do not have COVID-19. In low-income countries, routine testing is not feasible due
to the high cost of testing; therefore, presenting the risk of uncontrolled transmission within non–COVID-19 treatment wards.
This challenge necessitated the development of an affordable intermediary screening tool that would enable early identification
of potentially infected health care workers and for early real time DNA–polymerase chain reaction testing prioritization. This
would limit the contact time of potentially infected health care workers with the patients but also enable efficient use of the limited
testing kits.
Objective: The aims of this study are to describe an early warning in-hospital mobile risk analysis app for screening COVID-19
and to determine the feasibility and user-friendliness of the app among health care workers.
Methods: The primary result of this research project was the development of a mobile-based daily early warning system for
in-hospital transmission of COVID-19. Overall, the Early Warning System for In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 (EWAS)
mobile app was found to be feasible, with over 69% of the health care workers having logged more than 67% of the required
times. Over 93% of the participants reported that the tool was easy to use.
Results: The primary result of this research project was the development of a mobile-based daily early warning system for
in-hospital transmission of COVID-19. Overall, the Early Warning System for In-Hospital Transmission of COVID-19 (EWAS)
mobile app was found to be feasible, with 69% of the health care workers (69/100) having logged more than 67% of the required
times. Of the 100 participants, 93 reported that the tool was easy to use.
Conclusions: The EWAS mobile app is a feasible and user-friendly daily risk scoring tool for preventing in-hospital transmission
of COVID-19. Although it was not designed to be a diagnostic tool but rather a screening tool, there is a need to evaluate its
sensitivity in predicting persons likely to have contracted COVID-19.
Description
Keywords
mHealth, Risk score for Covid-19, Africa, Mobile health, Digital health, Pandemic, COVID-19, Screening tool, Healthcare workers, Transmission, Warning system
Citation
Mbiine, R., Nakanwagi, C., Lekuya, H. M., Aine, J., Hakim, K., Nabunya, L., & Tomusange, H. (2021). An early warning mobile health screening and risk scoring app for preventing in-hospital transmission of COVID-19 by health care workers: development and feasibility study. JMIR Formative Research, 5(12), e27521.