Applying M-Health to Palliative Care: A Systematic Review on the Use of M-Health in Monitoring Patients With Chronic Diseases and its Transposition in Palliative Care

BACKGROUND: The major growth of mobile technologies in the recent years has led to the development of medical-monitoring applications, particularly on smartphones. AIM: The aim of this study was to review the use of m-health in the monitoring of patients with chronic pathologies in order to consider what could be adapted for palliative care patients at home. DESIGN: A systematic review of the English and French literature was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses criteria. DATE SOURCES: The review screened the following databases: PUBMED, SCOPUS, COCHRANE, SCIENCE DIRECT, SUDOC, and EM-Premium, screening studies published between 2008 and 2018. The selection of articles was done by the main investigator. All studies concerning the use of m-Health apps for patients with chronic diseases were included. RESULTS: From the 337 selected publications, 8 systematic reviews and 14 original studies were included. The main uses of m-Health apps were biological and clinical monitoring (particularly concerning the symptoms) in 75% of the applications, disease self-management in 64% of the applications, and therapeutic patient education in 50% of the applications, with remote monitoring. CONCLUSIONS: The development of an m-Health application could become a complementary monitoring tool during palliative care. However, it seems important to question the impact of technique in the professional-patient relationship and avoid the pitfalls of standardizing palliative care and reducing the patient to a "sick" health technician. A future step would then be to define which health-care professional would be in charge of this "m-monitoring."