Availability and Use of Mobile Health Technology for Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Support by Health Workers in the Ashanti Region of Ghana: A Cross-sectional Survey
Authors: Osei Ernest , Agyei Kwasi , Tlou Boikhutso , Mashamba-Thompson Tivani P. 
Published: May 2021

Background

Mobile health (mHealth) technologies have been identified as promising strategies for improving access to healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. However, the extent of availability and use of mHealth among healthcare professionals in Ghana is not known. The main objective of this study is to determine the availability and use of mHealth for disease diagnosis and treatment support by health professionals in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 285 healthcare professionals across 100 primary healthcare clinics in the Ashanti Region, Ghana. We obtained data on the participants’ background, available health infrastructure, healthcare workforce competency, ownership of a mobile wireless device, usefulness of mHealth, ease of use of mHealth, user satisfaction, and behavioural intention to use mHealth. Descriptive statistics were conducted to characterize healthcare professionals’ demographics and clinical features. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the influence of the demographic factors on the availability and use of mHealth for disease diagnosis and treatment support. STATA version 15 was used to compute all the statistical analyses.

Findings

Out of the 285 healthcare professionals, 62.8% indicated that mHealth applications are available to them, while 37.2% had no access to mHealth. Of the 185 healthcare professionals who had access to mHealth, 98.4% are currently using mHealth to support healthcare delivery. Logistic regression model analysis significantly (p< 0.05) identified factors associated with the availability and use of mHealth applications for disease diagnosis and treatment support. There was a significant association between the availability and use of mHealth for disease diagnosis and treatment support from the chi-square test analysis.

Conclusion

The findings demonstrate a low-level use of mHealth for disease diagnosis and treatment support by healthcare professionals at the rural primary healthcare clinics. We encourage policymakers to promote the implementation of mHealth in rural primary health clinics.

Key questions

What is already known

Digitizing healthcare systems with mobile health technologies have been identified as essential tools for improving access to healthcare delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Ghana, mobile phones and their applications’ availability and utilization as of 2018 was estimated to be about 52% and is expected to increase steadily.

Ghana has given considerable attention to mobile health technologies and applications’ role in transforming healthcare delivery.

What are the new findings

The study reveals that 63% of healthcare professionals indicated that mHealth applications are available to them, while 37% do not have access to mHealth applications.

The study results illustrate that healthcare professionals primarily use mHealth applications to screen or diagnose existing many disease conditions in Ghana.

The study findings demonstrate that healthcare professionals in this part of Ghana use mHealth applications to treat HIV, TB, hypertension, diabetes, and malaria conditions.

The study results show a low-level use of mHealth applications for disease diagnosis and treatment support by healthcare professionals at the rural primary healthcare clinics.

Recommendations for policy

Our study encourages policymakers to deliberately implement mHealth technologies and applications at rural primary health clinics to support disease diagnosis and treatment procedures of patients’ conditions.

Our study recommends that more primary studies be conducted focused on using mHealth interventions to treat and manage many diseases such as cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory conditions, asthma, and others in this region.

The study encourages healthcare professionals to use mHealth applications to screen or diagnose several diseases such as neglected tropical diseases to enhance early detection.