Designing evaluation framework for the empirical assessment of COVID-19 mobile apps in Pakistan

Yasir Ali; Habib Ullah Khan

doi:10.1016/j.compeleceng.2022.108260

Designing evaluation framework for the empirical assessment of COVID-19 mobile apps in Pakistan

Comput Electr Eng. 2022 Sep:102:108260. doi: 10.1016/j.compeleceng.2022.108260. Epub 2022 Jul 26.

Authors

Yasir Ali¹, Habib Ullah Khan²

Affiliations

¹ Higher Education Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Government Degree College, Kotha Swabi, KP, Pakistan.
² Accounting and Information, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.

Abstract

The significant proliferation in the mobile health applications (Apps) amidst Coronaviruses disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in decision making problems for healthcare professionals, decision makers and mobile users in Pakistan. This decision making process is also hampered by mobile app trade-offs, multiple features support, evolving healthcare needs and varying vendors. In this regard, evaluation model for mobile apps is presented which completes in three different phases. In first phase, features-based criteria is designed by leveraging Delphi method, and twenty (20) mobile apps are selected from app stores. In second stage, empirical evaluation is performed by using hybrid multi criteria decision approaches like CRiteria Importance Through Inter-criteria Correlation (CRITIC) method has been used for assigning weights to criteria features; and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method has been used for assessment of mobile app alternatives. In last step, decision making is performed to select the best mobile app for COVID-19 situations. The results suggest that proposed model can be adopted as a guideline by mobile app subscribers, patients and healthcare professionals.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Mobile app evaluation framework; Pakistan; SARS-CoV-2; Smartphone applications.