JMIR Formative Research

Japan's aging society concentrates pneumonia burden across communities, long‑term care, perioperative pathways, and hospitals. Adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccination are supported by trials and meta‑analyses and are often cost‑effective; yet, realized value depends on targeting, measurement, financing, and pairing with bedside prevention such as oral care and hospital‑acquired pneumonia bundles. This viewpoint proposes a formative, indicator‑driven architecture linking cost‑effectiveness to operations by aligning vaccination with complementary oral‑care prevention and value‑based payment under the existing policy infrastructure. Working within the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare/Central Social Insurance Medical Council health technology assessment framework, Center for Outcomes Research and Economic Evaluation for Health methods, and claims–electronic health record linkage via My Number insurance card, we specify a compact national indicator set: vaccination coverage and timeliness, nonventilator hospital‑acquired pneumonia, ventilator‑associated pneumonia, postoperative and stroke‑associated pneumonia, antibiotic days of therapy, and length of stay, with pragmatic risk adjustment and present‑on‑admission flags. Value levers first reward reliable reporting and adherence to evidence‑based bundles and then share verified, risk‑adjusted savings. Long‑term care facilities receive add‑ons for professional oral care in high‑risk residents; hospitals receive quality add‑ons and shared savings; perioperative pathways may incorporate oral health management; and stroke units standardize oral hygiene with dysphagia screening. A phased roadmap details the pilot co‑design, governance, risk‑adjusted reporting with equity safeguards, and iterative recalibration by using real‑world evidence. The learning loop—measure, report, improve, generate evidence, adapt cost‑effectiveness, recalibrate payment—converts modeled value into lived experience: fewer pneumonias, reduced antibiotic exposure, shorter stays, improved function, and dignity at favorable or potentially lower costs, context-depending on baseline pneumonia rates, implementation fidelity, and local unit costs.

Telecare uses technology to help people live more independently at home. When an adverse event (such as someone falling or a bath overflowing) happens, the technology reactively senses this and alerts a call center to respond. If the technology can detect a person’s current (and past) states and behaviors, with machine learning, we can more proactively identify potential risks before an adverse event occurs and intervene. Despite social care organizations being data-rich, few predictive analytics are currently routinely applied. There is a need to understand current data management practices before optimizing organizational and technical readiness for proactive data-driven telecare services.

Although wastewater monitoring is an effective, nonintrusive public health strategy for tracking community-level COVID-19 prevalence, there has been limited research on public perceptions of this novel surveillance method. A significant gap exists in understanding how to design effective communication campaigns to gain public support for wastewater monitoring and persuade individuals to take preventive actions based on the data.

Among newly postpartum people, the novel Just Breathe guided breathing device showed high user satisfaction scores and self-perceived reductions in stress, although the Cohen d effect on heart rate variability and stress or anxiety symptoms as measured by validated psychometric scales was minimal.

The purpose of preoperative informed consent is to provide patients with comprehensive information about their treatment, including risks and alternatives, to enable informed decision-making. However, studies have shown that patients are often unable to understand or remember important information. Mobile health (mHealth) and augmented reality (AR) apps have been identified as promising solutions to improve patient education and knowledge retention.

Digital health technologies can potentially increase the efficiency and quality of pediatric palliative care (PPC), yet their use in home-based PPC remains limited. Limited digital health care literacy and inadequate training can reduce confidence and foster negative attitudes, whereas positive experiences and basic digital health care literacy may encourage adoption.

US veterans with mental health disorders have high rates of smoking and low rates of smoking cessation.

The integration of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems into the domain of medical question-answering (QA) presents a significant opportunity to enhance the effectiveness and accuracy of clinical support systems.

Across populations, risky drinking has been demonstrated to increase HIV risk behaviors. This is of special concern for sexually minoritized cisgender men and gender-diverse young adults (aged 18‐34 years), who report greater incidence of hazardous drinking (as defined by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test - Consumption criteria) and HIV compared to their heterosexual and/or cisgender peers.

Accurate patient record linkage is essential for clinical care, health information exchange, research, and public health surveillance. However, linkage accuracy may vary across demographic groups due to differences in data completeness, quality, and the structural factors underlying how demographic information is captured.

First responders, such as firefighters, experience significant mental health issues due to the high-stress nature of their work. Existing mental health interventions, such as meditation and debriefing, despite their benefits, do not target cognitive processing of traumatic events such as memory and emotion.

Black women experience dual disparities with disproportionately high rates of HIV infection and low uptake of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP). To address this issue, a culturally relevant eHealth video intervention was developed to increase awareness and uptake of PrEP.