Abstract
During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, digital technologies have become a major route for accessing remote care. Therefore, the need to ensure that these tools are safe and effective has never been greater. We raise five calls to action to ensure the safety, availability, and long-term sustainability of these technologies: (1) due diligence: remove harmful health apps from app stores; (2) data insights: use relevant health data insights from high-quality digital tools to inform the greater response to COVID-19; (3) freely available resources: make high-quality digital health tools available without charge, where possible, and for as long as possible, especially to those who are most vulnerable; (4) digital transitioning: transform conventional offline mental health services to make them digitally available; and (5) population self-management: encourage governments and insurers to work with developers to look at how digital health management could be subsidized or funded. We believe this should be carried out at the population level, rather than at a prescription level.
Highlights
We maintain behaviors that limit the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we must ensure that measures are in place to prevent, or at least mitigate, the risks of individuals being harmed in other ways
Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, including prolonged social distancing and self-isolation, may trigger or exacerbate social, mental, and physical health problems, such as anxiety, https://mental.jmir.org/2020/7/e19246
During the COVID-19 crisis, digital technologies have become a major route for accessing mental health care
Summary
We maintain behaviors that limit the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we must ensure that measures are in place to prevent, or at least mitigate, the risks of individuals being harmed in other ways.Before COVID-19, mental health and social services were already stretched. KEYWORDS digital mental health; call to action; due diligence; data insights; COVID-19
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