NHS Choices Apps Library

May 9, 2013 | by

If you Google ‘NHS Apps Library’ the early results that come back after those to the library itself are predominantly from US publications. Perhaps we in the UK under-appreciate the potential benefits. The reason I mention this is that while TTA has given the Apps Library a couple of passing mentions during the past month or two, we have not – as one sharp eyed reader pointed out – given it the attention it deserves. So, by way of amends, here are some relevant links:

Mysteriously, the 12 apps recommended in the following enthusiastic US article: UK NHS launches 12 patient decision support apps do not seem to be listed in the library. Perhaps the author mistakes the BMJ for the NHS, or perhaps they are published or endorsed by a different part of the NHS…

I’ll be happy to take recommendations for links to good articles on the Library. Ed. Steve.

Whisper of the heart

April 4, 2013 | by

Two app-related items spotted by TANN Ireland editor Toni Bunting. Connect the dots with the first to this TTA item and the second has potentially huge implications for understanding heart disease:

Related item on TANN Ireland: Gamifying meditative breathing with the Zen biosensor.

FDA regulating medical apps–or not? The Hearings. (US)

March 22, 2013 | by

Much coverage of this past Tuesday-Thursday’s US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee hearings on how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be regulating developing mobile health technologies.  Some key issues are if the 2.3 percent Obamacare medical device tax will apply to apps (after chilling development on surgical devices–see day 1 hearings), whether FDA will ever get around to publishing a final guidance (end of year), will FDA consider smartphones medical devices (no) and if FDA should share some of the responsibility with–or give it over entirely to–the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information (ONC) under Health and Human Services (HHS). Can FDA even keep up at this stage? (it takes them about three months on average review) and How much will regulation add to the price? are major questions. The representatives have heard from numerous leaders in the field: Tuesday, Happtique’s CEO Ben Chodor and the mHealth Regulatory Coalition’s Bradley Merrill Thompson; Wednesday, West Wireless Institute’s chief medical officer Joseph Smith; Thursday, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator, Health Information Technology, HHS and Ms. Christy Foreman of FDA. Mobihealthnews’ Brian Dolan live blogged from the hearings; there are also testimony statements. From these reports, the hearings have decided exactly nothing and revealed little about FDA’s inaction, but at least the issues have received some fresh air from those in the industry.

An overview of the articles/blogs to date.  Updated 23 March  (more…)

What it takes to deliver sustainable global health: sustainable financing

March 1, 2013 | by

The mHealth Alliance and consultant/research company VitalWave have published a globally-oriented study detailing what holds back mHealth from scaling up in low to middle-income countries, centering on financing. Hundreds of projects are in the field, but practically all are dependent on short-term financing or grants, and few have viable plans beyond the next grant. Projects also by their nature are stand-alone and don’t integrate in their design and delivery with other often similar projects. This study evaluates five financial models and transferring from external funding to a revenue stream from buyers. Case studies include VillageReach (maternal SMS/phone support), Switchboard (free calling network for health workers), Sproxil (drug verification), SMS for Life (SMS for anti-malarial drug distribution) and Changamka (affordable health care). Sustainable Financing for Mobile Health (42 pages)

Smart tech=dumber people?

March 1, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/bincam_l.jpeg” thumb_width=”220″ /]Is the real goal of ‘smart gadgets’ not to help solve our problems or keep us from harm, but to fix, per the Google paradigm, the “broken” place that is the real world and the bad behavior of fools like us? (For example, not recycling properly, having too much trash, eating too fast,  too much chocolate? Then tattling to our Facebook friends so they can chide us?) Evgeny Morozov, in this discomfiting Wall Street Journal article, cuts through the Silicon Valley hype around gadgets that marry cheap sensors, software and social networks to ‘nudge’ (that hateful word)/reward/shove us to the New Jerusalem of social engineering and some developer’s nannyish idea of ‘better behavior’. Yes, there are ‘good smart’ devices that help us make decisions, lifesaving tech such as gait sensors that monitor the elderly for propensity to fall, and breath analyzers that cut the car’s ignition when the driver’s had too much alcohol, but these are being drowned out in both the public consciousness and the VC wallet by shame-making trash cans and HapiForks. Rather than empowering us, it may be… Is Smart Making Us Dumb?

Another perfect example of condescension to the end user is observed in Google’s Sergey Brin’s recent remarks during his endless flogging of Google Glass, now just Glass. Now looking down at your smartphone is ’emasculating’ (interesting choice of words) because you are ‘walking around hunched up, looking down, rubbing a featureless piece of glass’ rather than interacting. Aside from the fact that you can put it away, and that Google’s made a fair amount of coin from Nexus smartphones and tablets, it’s obvious that Glass is meant to be worn ALL THE TIME, serving up whatever Google wants you to have ALL THE TIME. Surely the California TEDx folks raved at this maximum cool, but this Editor is skeptical that this world will be actually be better with all Google, all the time. In other words, enough. Google’s Sergey Brin rips smartphones, shows off Glass (Computerworld)

Health apps finally get a certification body (US)

February 27, 2013 | by

Happtique has now published the standards it will use to certify apps under what they have dubbed the Happtique Health App Certification Program (HACP). The published final guidelines include both the Certification Standards and associated Performance Requirements, which assess operability, privacy, security, and content. Happtique, a subsidiary of GNYHA Ventures, has also brought in initial HACP Partners to serve as subject matter experts for evaluating apps: the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), CGFNS International, and Intertek. While Happtique is not yet ready to evaluate medical, health or fitness apps, companies can register for a submission form and be notified when the application portal is opened for submissions.

What a difference a phone makes!

February 26, 2013 | by

The BBC Media Action charity (formerly the BBC World Service Trust) has published an excellent – of course – ‘policy paper’ on the use of mobile phones in healthcare for “poor, illiterate and marginalised populations”. It says “…there is enough experience – and the beginnings of an evidence base – to argue that mHealth deserves serious attention from any development actor seeking to improve global health.” Not only that, it is possible for it to “scale in a cost-effective, financially sustainable way”. Download the 24-page PDF here: Health on the move.