mHealth in Physical Therapy Practice: What Consumers Want?

Abstract

Purpose: Health-care delivery mode system has been evolving over the years. There has been an increase in adoption of mHealth technologies by health-care clients and providers. Physical Therapy and Society Summit (PASS) was sponsored by APTA in 2009. It envisioned current, evolving, and future health care needs that could be addressed by physical therapist. Recent COVID-19 pandemic has modified ways of working and addressing various needs for health care. This has led to adding finding new strategies to establish new normal of functioning. The focus should be on adding value-based practice with the consumers as key stakeholders. Thus, the authors aim to provide a literature review framework for mHealth in physical therapy practice and also understand consumer behavior and what are their wants from this emerging mode of health-care delivery. Methodology: Literature was assessed by comprehensive computerized search from January 2020 to July 2020 form multiple databases. In addition, to increase the search accuracy, reference lists of articles were also searched. Forty-six free; full-text articles, systematic reviews, RCT’s, health policy perspectives, global surveys, and guidelines were included for the literature review frame work. Consumer behavior and needs were assessed using a designed questionnaire through online survey sent through various social platforms. Conclusion: mHealth is a definite evolving change in physical therapy practice. Focus should be on Android-based application for a probable 85% target population. Self-assessments, treatment interventions, activity tracking, and report documentation are the key features consumers look for.