Consumer Mobile Health Apps: Current State, Barriers, and Future Directions

Abstract

This paper discusses the current state, barriers, and future directions of consumer-facing applications (apps). There are currently more than 165,000 mobile health apps publicly available in major app stores, the vast majority of which are designed for patients. The top 2 categories are wellness management and disease management apps, whereas other categories include self-diagnosis, medication reminder, and electronic patient portal apps. Apps specific to physical medicine and rehabilitation also are reviewed. These apps have the potential to provide low-cost, around-the-clock access to high-quality, evidence-based health information to end users on a global scale. However, they have not yet lived up to their potential due to multiple barriers, including lack of regulatory oversight, limited evidence-based literature, and concerns of privacy and security. The future directions may consist of improving data integration into the health care system, an interoperable app platform allowing access to electronic health record data, cloud-based personal health record across health care networks, and increasing app prescription by health care providers. For consumer mobile health apps to fully contribute value to health care delivery and chronic disease management, all stakeholders within the ecosystem must collaborate to overcome the significant barriers.

Improved aftercare in LVAD patients: Development and feasibility of a smartphone application as a first step for telemonitoring

“…In addition to telephone interventions, smartphone applications in particular have the potential to improve the aftercare of patients in today's society. Smartphone applications can be used independently of place and time and are becoming increasingly popular, also and especially in the medical field . Numerous medical applications already exist, for example, in the field of chronic disease management .…”

“…If heterogeneous parameters from many different patients are collected every day and stored in a database, this will give rise to new ways of generating findings, hypotheses, or decision aiding mechanisms through big data algorithms and artificial intelligence . A particular challenge in light of all these new developments will be the interoperability of heterogeneous information sources, as well as permanent adherence to data protection regulations …”

Assessing the Quality of Mobile Phone Apps for Weight Management: User-Centered Study With Employees From a Lebanese University (Preprint)

“…In other words, healthy, obese individuals perceived these apps particularly engaging and of high quality. As engagement is related to app usage [1], these individuals might be more likely to use the apps in the future. These findings are particularly suggestive, as these popular weight management apps (in particular Lark, MyFitnessPal, and MyPlate) may be used in interventions addressing obesity prevention (healthy volunteers) and treatment (obese) [34].…”

“…With the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as obesity or diabetes, mHealth apps offer cost-efficient and effective preventive strategies [1], as they can reach millions of users. According to the 2017 mHealth App Economics report, there are more than 350,000 health apps available in online stores [2], a market worth $25 billion in 2017 [3], and estimated to reach $31 billion by 2020 [4].…”

“…Some qualitative studies show that users stop using apps due to hidden costs, increased data entry burden [33], and low perceived engagement [34]. Engagement with an app is generally associated with sustained app usage [1], but it has also been associated with positive changes in physical activity [35,36] and diet [37], fundamental behaviors in weight management.…”