title: Many Mobile Health Apps Target High-Need, High-Cost Populations, But Gaps Remain.
abstract: With rising smartphone ownership, mobile health applications (mHealth apps) have the potential to support high-need, high-cost populations in managing their health. While the number of available mHealth apps has grown substantially, no clear strategy has emerged on how providers should evaluate and recommend such apps to patients. Key stakeholders, including medical professional societies, insurers, and policy makers, have largely avoided formally recommending apps, which forces patients to obtain recommendations from other sources. To help stakeholders overcome barriers to reviewing and recommending apps, we evaluated 137 patient-facing mHealth apps-those intended for use by patients to manage their health-that were highly rated by consumers and recommended by experts and that targeted high-need, high-cost populations. We found that there is a wide variety of apps in the marketplace but that few apps address the needs of the patients who could benefit the most. We also found that consumers' ratings were poor indications of apps' clinical utility or usability and that most apps did not respond appropriately when a user entered potentially dangerous health information. Going forward, data privacy and security will continue to be major concerns in the dissemination of mHealth apps.
authors.affiliation: Karandeep Singh (kdpsingh@mich.edu) is an assistant professor of learning health sciences and of medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, in Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: Karandeep
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Kaitlin Drouin is a project manager in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Kaitlin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Drouin
authors.affiliation: Lisa P. Newmark is a project manager in the Information Systems Department at Partners HealthCare, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Lisa P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Newmark
authors.affiliation: JaeHo Lee is an associate professor of biomedical informatics at the Asan Medical Center, in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: JaeHo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Arild Faxvaag is a visiting scientist in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: Arild
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faxvaag
authors.affiliation: Ronen Rozenblum is a research associate in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: Ronen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rozenblum
authors.affiliation: Erika A. Pabo is an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: Erika A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Pabo
authors.affiliation: Adam Landman is chief information officer at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Landman
authors.affiliation: Elissa Klinger is a project manager in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: Elissa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Klinger
authors.affiliation: David W. Bates is chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Bates
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000191:economics / Q000628:therapy*; D015897:Comorbidity; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D006801:Humans; D063731:Mobile Applications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061214:Patient Safety; D012648:Self Care; D000068997:Smartphone; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Chronic Care; Consumer Issues; High-need; Mobile health; Patient engagement; high-cost populations