Digital health and geolocation: Evaluating the use of AI in preliminary medical diagnosis and recommendation of nearby health centers in mobile applications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55873/rad.v4i2.416Keywords:
accessibility, equity, mHealth, preliminary diagnosis, usabilityAbstract
Timely access to health services continues to be a challenge in rural and peri-urban contexts, where the lack of immediate preliminary diagnosis and guidance to nearby centers limits adequate care. This systematic review, carried out under the PRISMA protocol, analyzed 28 studies published between 2021 and 2025 on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in mobile applications for initial diagnosis and its integration with geolocation systems. The results showed that AI reaches accuracies of up to 95% in specific pathologies, although in symptom checkers its performance was below 65%. Geolocation models improved access to services in urban areas but faced limitations in rural zones due to low connectivity and incomplete maps. It is concluded that the integration of AI and geolocation offers significant potential to strengthen digital health, although it requires overcoming ethical, regulatory, and equity challenges in access.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Cesia Keren Pintado-Córdova, Liz Nery Cieza-Cruz, Juan Jose Torres-Solano
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