Health apps, a critical health issue is discussed in a White Paper produced jointly by www.myhealthapps.net and the UK government’s ICT Knowledge Transfer Network and published by PatientView. There is a great deal of information available on apps as myhealthapps.net receives information on 370 apps each month in 47 different languages dealing deal with 150 different health specialties, with five different platforms, and prices. The White Paper clarifies the situation by presenting key findings on health apps as to whether they make sense for patients and healthcare professionals to use.
The White Paper with key findings resulted from the joint seminar held in London October 28, 2013, a cross stakeholder European-based meeting that looked at quality standards among health apps. The seminar was precipitated by the coming publication of the EU Green Paper on Mobile health scheduled to be published at the end of March 2014.
Various stakeholders attending the seminar included major mobile manufacturers, app developers, representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, academics, patient organizations, as well as representatives from the European Commission DG CONNECT.
The White Paper discusses five key challenges that need to be addressed:
- Overhaul the healthcare systems to make them patient-centric and promote greater self-care using apps as a catalyst
- Engage doctors when they prescribe health apps as healthcare professionals often lag behind and are poorly informed if doctors have prescribed health apps
- Oversee quality standards for health apps so that health apps can move into mainstream healthcare as regulatory requirements for prescribing apps will need clarification
- Ensure that health apps maintain high quality standards throughout their lifetime in the marketplace
- Improve interfaces for smartphones and health apps so that older people and people with a disability will find them easier to use.
For publications related to apps go to www.myhealthapps.net/resources or go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/xt6oh78wpn4b1ef/MASTER%20A4%20WHITE%20PAPER%20PDF.pdf for the White Paper. For more information, contact Dee O’Sullivan at dee@patient-view.com or go to the web site at www.patient-view.com.