Quick response code applications in medical and cardiology settings: a systematic scoping review Andrea Faggiano 1 *, Francesco Fioretti 2 , Savina Nodari 2 , Stefano Carugo 1 1 Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Cardiovascular Disease Unit, Internal Medicine Department, University of Milan, Via Francesco Sforza 25, 20122, Milan, Italy; and 2 Department of Medical and Surgical Specialties, Radiological Sciences, and Public Health, Institute of Cardiology, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy Received 22 February 2021; revisied 16 March 2021; accepted 7 April 2021; online publish-ahead-of-print 8 April 2021 Aims To review published literature on the use of quick response (QR) codes within medical and cardiology settings. ................................................................................................................................................................................................... Methods and Results Medline, Scopus Search, and Cochrane Library were used to conduct the research. Title and abstract review of 376 publications were performed. Papers that discussed the application of QR codes in medical setting were included. A total of 151 articles were reviewed and thematic analysis conducted to understand how QR codes are currently used in the medical setting, the medical areas in which they are mostly used, their applications in the car- diovascular area. The analysis of 151 articles revealed that QR code technology is mainly used in the medical field to: (i) collect data via survey, (ii) educate medical staff or students, and (iii) provide information about therapies or surgery. The medical area in which QR codes are most used is the clinical one, but only 3.3% of publications con- cern cardiovascular settings. A third of the QR code-related articles of 2020 is about Covid-19. ................................................................................................................................................................................................... Conclusions Different uses of QR codes in a medical setting are increasing. Quick response codes might represent an easy and convenient digital tool to collect data and implement telemedicine programs on a large scale involving also the car- diovascular setting.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     * Corresponding author. Tel: þ39 3406963946, Email: andreafaggiano95@gmail.com V C The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com European Heart Journal - Digital Health (2021) 2, 336–341 SHORT REPORT doi:10.1093/ehjdh/ztab038 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehjdh/article/2/2/336/6217962 by guest on 16 June 2022