Improving Patient Safety And Empowerment Through The Evaluation of Apps On Health Program Of The Andalusian Health Quality Agency
|
If you are the presenter of this abstract (or if you cite this abstract in a talk or on a poster), please show the QR code in your slide or poster (QR code contains this URL). |
Abstract
Background
The rapid growth of mHealth results in new possibilities of how health services are delivered to patients, opening new horizons through mobile technologies.
Health apps enable patient empowerment, and consequently, they become more responsible and aware about their health problems.
The number of health apps is in constant increase, counting more than tens of thousands available apps in the different markets.
Nevertheless, several studies have found that not always the use of Apps may be considered as secure or trustworthy.
It seems necessary to establish some criteria in order to measure the reliability of mobile Apps, mainly in health sector.
Objective
The development of a Health App Evaluation Program based on the definition on quality and safety standards and recommendations, aimed at the continuous improvement of health Apps, by the Andalusian Health Quality Agency, a public organization focused on the promotion of Quality policies in the Public Health Sector of Andalusia (Spain), a region counting of more than 9 million habitants.
Methods
1.- Constitution of a Technical Committee, integrated by representatives of:
Physicians, patients, health managers, developers, public healthcare organizations… for the development of the Recommendation and Quality Standards
2.- Public Release of an Alpha version of the “Guide of Recommendations for the Design, Use and Evaluation of Health Apps†at www.calidadappsalud.com (Sept. 2012)
3.- Improvement of the draft version with the suggestion and commentaries received. (Dec. 2012)
4.- Development of an App Evaluation Platform to offer Apps Auto evaluation and Evaluation by third party to certificate compliant Apps (March 2013)
Results
Release of the first Guide of Recommendation for health apps in Spanish language.
Release of the first App Certification program in Spanish language.
Successful evaluation of several health apps, validating the body of recommendations and standards designed.
Conclusions
It is necessary to provide Patients, Health professionals and citizens in general with some criteria to empower and train them in the use of health apps that may involve the outcome of important health matters.
Recognition and Quality Assurance of compliant apps is an effective way to empower patients on the use of Health Apps.
Public health organizations are partly responsible of the regulation of health apps and should play a key role in this issue.
The rapid growth of mHealth results in new possibilities of how health services are delivered to patients, opening new horizons through mobile technologies.
Health apps enable patient empowerment, and consequently, they become more responsible and aware about their health problems.
The number of health apps is in constant increase, counting more than tens of thousands available apps in the different markets.
Nevertheless, several studies have found that not always the use of Apps may be considered as secure or trustworthy.
It seems necessary to establish some criteria in order to measure the reliability of mobile Apps, mainly in health sector.
Objective
The development of a Health App Evaluation Program based on the definition on quality and safety standards and recommendations, aimed at the continuous improvement of health Apps, by the Andalusian Health Quality Agency, a public organization focused on the promotion of Quality policies in the Public Health Sector of Andalusia (Spain), a region counting of more than 9 million habitants.
Methods
1.- Constitution of a Technical Committee, integrated by representatives of:
Physicians, patients, health managers, developers, public healthcare organizations… for the development of the Recommendation and Quality Standards
2.- Public Release of an Alpha version of the “Guide of Recommendations for the Design, Use and Evaluation of Health Apps†at www.calidadappsalud.com (Sept. 2012)
3.- Improvement of the draft version with the suggestion and commentaries received. (Dec. 2012)
4.- Development of an App Evaluation Platform to offer Apps Auto evaluation and Evaluation by third party to certificate compliant Apps (March 2013)
Results
Release of the first Guide of Recommendation for health apps in Spanish language.
Release of the first App Certification program in Spanish language.
Successful evaluation of several health apps, validating the body of recommendations and standards designed.
Conclusions
It is necessary to provide Patients, Health professionals and citizens in general with some criteria to empower and train them in the use of health apps that may involve the outcome of important health matters.
Recognition and Quality Assurance of compliant apps is an effective way to empower patients on the use of Health Apps.
Public health organizations are partly responsible of the regulation of health apps and should play a key role in this issue.
Medicine 2.0® is happy to support and promote other conferences and workshops in this area. Contact us to produce, disseminate and promote your conference or workshop under this label and in this event series. In addition, we are always looking for hosts of future World Congresses. Medicine 2.0® is a registered trademark of JMIR Publications Inc., the leading academic ehealth publisher.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.