Journal of Medical Internet Research

The aging global population and the rising prevalence of chronic disease and multimorbidity have strained health care systems, driving the need for expanded health care resources. Transitioning to home-based care (HBC) may offer a sustainable solution, supported by technological innovations such as Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) platforms. However, the full potential of IoMT platforms to streamline health care delivery is often limited by interoperability challenges that hinder communication and pose risks to patient safety. Gaining more knowledge about addressing higher levels of interoperability issues is essential to unlock the full potential of IoMT platforms.

Patient portals, or secure websites linked to electronic medical records, have emerged as tools to provide patients with timely access to their health information. To support the potential benefits of patient portals such as improved engagement in health care, it is essential to understand how patients and caregivers experience these portals.

Health misinformation undermines responses to health crises, with social media amplifying the issue. Although organizations work to correct misinformation, challenges persist due to reasons such as the difficulty of effectively sharing corrections and information being overwhelming. At the same time, social media offers valuable interactive data, enabling researchers to analyze user engagement with health misinformation corrections and refine content design strategies.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major global health issue, with approximately 70% of cases linked to modifiable risk factors. Digital health solutions offer potential for CVD prevention; yet, their effectiveness in covering the full range of prevention strategies is uncertain.

Readability is important to consider when developing informed consent communications for prospective research participants, but not the most important consideration. Other factors to consider relate to learning preferences and literacy needs of people recruited to participate in research, as these factors can influence understanding of consent communications. To promote understanding among prospective participants, researchers should take a human-centered approach to develop consent communications.

Prevention of suicide is a global health priority. Approximately 800,000 individuals die by suicide yearly, and for every suicide death, there are another 20 estimated suicide attempts. Large language models (LLMs) hold the potential to enhance scalable, accessible, and affordable digital services for suicide prevention and self-harm interventions. However, their use also raises clinical and ethical questions that require careful consideration.

Personal accounts of health care experiences posted to online platforms are a rich source of patient-reported data. Noninteractive narratives, published as one-off accounts, often describe an entire patient journey in one story, featuring transitions through health care settings from prediagnosis to outcome. These coherent perspectives may not be visible or captured in fragmented social media posts or episodic blogs. For researchers seeking patient-reported accounts of care quality across a clinical trajectory, noninteractive online narratives can be an invaluable, easily accessible resource. The challenges and limitations of research utilizing these data may differ from working with interactive patient narratives and include source transparency and credibility, limited or no information about authors, and ambiguity about the health care context and time frames. We outline a framework for addressing these issues in 5 key phases of the research cycle: the conceptual-theoretical approach; locating sources of data; accessing and collecting the data; quantitative profiling to establish demographics, health care events, and time frames; and qualitative analysis utilizing multiple modes of narrative inquiry. We explain the use of this framework in a real-world example: our study of 273 online patient narratives describing health care trajectories in early-onset bowel cancer.

Efficient emergency patient transport systems, which are crucial for delivering timely medical care to individuals in critical situations, face certain challenges. To address this, CONNECT-AI (CONnected Network for EMS Comprehensive Technical-Support using Artificial Intelligence), a novel digital platform, was introduced. This artificial intelligence (AI)–based network provides comprehensive technical support for the real-time sharing of medical information at the prehospital stage.

The US COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ended on May 11, 2023. Lawmakers and regulators extended some flexibilities while they deliberate effective long-term telemedicine policy. Here, we discuss critical challenges in telemedicine compliance and regulation grounded in scholarly literature and current events. We specifically consider obstacles and progress toward solutions in telemedicine law and regulation regarding privacy and security issues, care across state borders, and prescribing over telemedicine in the United States. We conclude that simplified policies are needed to keep telemedicine accessible to providers and patients and that current privacy and security measures need refinement to protect patients appropriately.

An increasingly aging population, accompanied by a shortage of residential aged care homes and workforce and consumer feedback, has driven a growing interest in enabling older people to age in place through home-based care. In this context, smart home technologies for remote health monitoring have gained popularity for supporting older people to live in their own homes.

Parental technoference, the interruption of parent-child interactions by technology, has been associated with negative outcomes in children’s media use. However, the magnitude of this relationship and its moderating factors remain unclear.

Medication-related adverse events are common in pregnant women, and most are due to misunderstanding medication information. The identification of appropriate medication information sources requires adequate medical information literacy (MIL). It is important for pregnant women to comprehensively evaluate the risk of medication treatment, self-monitor their medication response, and actively participate in decision-making to reduce medication-related adverse events.