Mobile health apps not reliable for chronic patients: Study

Representational pictureNew York Depending on smartphonebased health applications for managing chronic conditions or complex health needs may prove to be risky as such apps are falling short on many counts a study led by Indianorigin scientist has foundClearly there is a largescale proliferation of apps happening related to health and people have made the switchover to smartphones But the question is to what extent are apps serving the needs of patients with chronic diseases and their caregivers as opposed to generally healthy people seeking help with wellness said lead author Karandeep Singh Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan in the USThe study is based on a comprehensive review of 137 of the most highly rated or often recommended mobile health or mHealth apps on Apple and Google app stores aimed at people with chronic conditionsThe findings showed that there was a wide range of highly rated apps that offer to help people with conditions such as diabetes and depression but for those with arthritis or pain only few options highquality apps were presentThe ratings on app stores mainly supplied by other users could not always be a reliable guide even with highly rated appsFurther nearly 121 of the apps were found to let people enter information such as a daily blood sugar or blood pressure level or whether they were feeling suicidal into their phoneHowever only 28 of these apps reacted appropriately when the reviewers entered a dangerous value for instance a high blood pressure or low blood sugar level or a suicidal mood the researchers explainedIn addition most of the apps allow users to share their health information with others but the researchers found that often this was through insecure methodsOnly twothirds of the apps had a written privacy policy spelling out how they protect or use the information supplied by usersThis is better than previous studies of all mHealth apps have found but still troubling to the researchers because the apps in this study were supposed to be the most topnotchWe found that the consumergenerated rating on the app store is a very poor marker of how usable an app is and whether a physician would recommend it Clearly the work is not done once consumers have rated an app Singh addedThe study was published in the journal Health Affairs