Mobile medical and health apps: state of the art, concerns, regulatory control and certification.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Boulos, Maged N. Kamel Brewer, Ann C. Karimkhani, Chante Buller, David B. Dellavalle, Robert P.
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	This paper examines the state of the art in mobile clinical and health-related apps. A 2012estimate puts the number of health-related apps at no fewer than 40,000, as healthcare professionalsand consumers continue to express concerns about the quality of many apps, calling for some form ofapp regulatory control or certification to be put in place. We describe the range of apps on offeras of 2013, and then present a brief survey of evaluation studies of medical and health-related appsthat have been conducted to date, covering a range of clinical disciplines and topics. Our surveyincludes studies that highlighted risks, negative issues and worrying deficiencies in existing apps.We discuss the concept of ‘apps as a medical device’ and the relevant regulatorycontrols that apply in USA and Europe, offering examples of apps that have been formally approvedusing these mechanisms. We describe the online Health Apps Library run by the National HealthService in England and the calls for a vetted medical and health app store. We discuss theingredients for successful apps beyond the rather narrow definition of ‘apps as a medicaldevice’. These ingredients cover app content quality, usability, the need to match apps toconsumers’ general and health literacy levels, device connectivity standards (for apps thatconnect to glucometers, blood pressure monitors, etc.), as well as app security and user privacy.‘Happtique Health App Certification Program’ (HACP), a voluntary app certificationscheme, successfully captures most of these desiderata, but is solely focused on apps targeting theUS market. HACP, while very welcome, is in ways reminiscent of the early days of the Web, when many“similar” quality benchmarking tools and codes of conduct for information publisherswere proposed to appraise and rate online medical and health information. It is probably impossibleto rate and police every app on offer today, much like in those early days of the Web, when peoplequickly realised the same regarding informational Web pages. The best first line of defence was, is,and will always be to educate consumers regarding the potentially harmful content of (some)apps.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC3959919&blobtype=pdf
Journal	Online Journal of Public Health Informatics [Online J Public Health Inform]
Volume Number	5
DOI	10.5210/ojphi.v5i3.4814
PubMed Central reference number	PMC3959919
Issue Number	3
PubMed reference number	24683442
e-ISSN	19472579
Language	English
Publisher	University of Illinois at Chicago Library
Publisher Date	2014-02-05
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an Open Access article. Authors own copyright of their articlesappearing in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics.
Subject Keyword	mobile apps text messaging smartphones mobile tablet computers mobile health (mHealth) telemedicine healthcare evaluation regulation and certification quality
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health