Title: Impact of wireless technologies on public health: a literature review

Authors: Antonio Conduce; Daniela Di Sciacca; Sergio Sbrenni

Addresses: Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Roma RM, Italy ' Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Roma RM, Italy ' Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Roma RM, Italy

Abstract: The aim of this review is to evaluate the impact of wireless technologies (WT) on the public health in terms of patient safety, quality of care and cost savings. This paper is up to date with the most recent publications related to the COVID-19 emergency. We ended up analysing 66 papers and found the main applications of WT on public health in the literature. The study has been organised in four different areas of application, identifies and analyses risks and benefits on public health, highlighting strengths and opportunities. Major benefits identified are: safeguard of public health in pandemic, improving outcomes in time-dependent pathologies and reducing management costs. Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the adoption of WT in healthcare has increased significantly. Innovative technologies could be a smart solution to the problem, but a careful assessment of their impact on the quality and sustainability of health services is required.

Keywords: emergency medicine; coronavirus; pandemics; quality of care; wireless technology; equipment and supplies; telemedicine; technology assessment; biomedical; electronic health records; review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMEI.2022.121136

International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics, 2022 Vol.14 No.2, pp.190 - 211

Received: 11 Nov 2019
Accepted: 08 Jul 2020
Published online: 28 Feb 2022 *

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