IMS Health enters health app ranking, prescribing

Global healthcare informatics provider IMS Health during mHealth Summit announced its entry into mHealth prescribing and evaluation with AppScript. They also are getting into the development standards business with AppNucleus, a hosting platform that from the description, will guide developers in designing secure, HIPAA and HITECH Act compliant apps using IMS Health information and data analytics. AppScript uses a proprietary methodology called AppScore to classify and evaluate apps based on functionality, peer and patient reviews, certifications, and their potential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care. According to Information Week Healthcare, AppScore includes 25 criteria developed by IMS and its physician advisors to rank (or exclude if non-applicable) the 40,000+ iOS and Android healthcare apps. AppScript also includes secure messaging, clinical app organization and usage tracking. IMS Health’s earlier moves into this area was the Ford SYNC Allergy Alert project in 2012 [TTA 7 Aug 12] and late this summer in the acquisition of mobile app security developer/provider Diversinet [TTA 15 Aug]. IMS Health’s moves are highly significant based upon Happtique’s halt to app certification earlier this week. Certainly their decades in data analytics and big data, especially for pharma, and their claim to have the largest global database of healthcare data at 10 petabytes, makes them a formidable and credible leader in app curation and prescribing for physicians and health plans. IMS release. Also Mobihealthnews.