Mobile Triage Applications: A Systematic Review in Literature and Play Store

• Published in: Journal of medical systems 2021-09, Vol.45 (9), p.86-86, Article 86
• Main Authors: Montano, Isabel Herrera, de la Torre Díez, Isabel, López-Izquierdo, Raúl, Villamor, Miguel A. Castro, Martín-Rodríguez, Francisco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applications programs; Emergencies; Health Informatics; Health Sciences; Humans; Literature reviews; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mobile & Wireless Health; Mobile Applications; Mobile computing; Search engines; Statistics for Life Sciences; Systematic review; Telemedicine; Trauma; Triage
• ISSN: 0148-5598; 1573-689X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10916-021-01763-2

The main objective of this paper is to review and analysis of the state of the art regarding triage applications (apps) for health emergencies. This research is based on a systematic review of the literature in scientific databases from 2010 to early 2021, following a prism methodology. In addition, a Google Play Store search of the triage apps found in the literature was performed for further evaluation. A total of 26 relevant papers were obtained for this study, of which 13 apps were identified. After searching for each of these apps in the Google Play Store platform, only 2 of them were obtained, and these were subsequently evaluated together with another app obtained from the link provided in the corresponding paper. In the analysis carried out, it was detected that from 2019 onwards there has been an increase in research interest in this area, since the papers obtained from this year onwards represent 38.5% of the relevant papers. This increase may be caused by the need for early selection of the most serious patients in such difficult times for the health service. According to the review carried out, an increase in mobile app research focused on Emergency Triage and a decrease in app studies for triage catastrophe have been identified. In this study it was also observed that despite the existence of many researches in this sense, only 3 apps contained in them are accessible. "TRIAGIST" does not allow the entry of an unidentified user, "Major Trauma Triage Tool" presents negative comments from users who have used it and "ESITriage" lacks updates to improve its performance.