health apps

AppQ: These are the topics included in our draft of a core-set of quality criteria for health apps

Offering more quality transparency in digital health applications for citizens, so that good apps can be used in healthcare: With this goal in mind, we are developing an online app search with our Weisse Liste colleagues. In this context, we are developing the AppQ core-set of quality criteria, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health. The core-set aims to help standardize the quality requirements for health apps and to provide structured quality data for these apps (as previously reported). In this second blog post on AppQ, we report on the progress of our project and present the draft of the core-set of quality criteria.

AppQ: improving quality transparency in health apps with a core set of quality criteria

Which health app is right for me? Which offering is reliable? What distinguishes the various applications on the market from each other? Together with our Weisse Liste colleagues, we’re working on an online platform that will provide answers to these questions. Our goal is to create transparency in the growing field of digital health applications for citizens and to offer providers of good apps the opportunity to raise awareness of their commitment to quality. As part of this project and with the support of the Federal Ministry of Health, we’re developing a core set of quality criteria for health apps that can be applied through a web application. This blog post is an introduction to this project titled “AppQ.”

What does the “digital patient” expect from his or her physician? An appraisal of the patient’s role in digital transformation

What does the “digital patient” expect from his or her physician? How can physicians respond to these expectations? Do people suffering illness really want to to determine their course of action with the help of digital media or is the oft-cited concept of “patient sovereignty” merely an abstraction that has emerged from the discourse on digitalization? The editorial staff at x.press, a magazine for office-based physicians in Germany, has taken our project name to heart and asked us what we think about the role of the patient in digital transformation. Below, we offer the full transcript of the interview. Our key takeaway:  Patients want to be treated well and have a say in their treatment. If there is a technology available that can help in this sense, they expect their physician to use it. And those who readily use digital forms of communication in other parts of their life do not want to have to go in person to the doctor’s office for everything.

Health apps: Who uses them? What do people think of them?

To what extent are health apps relevant today? Who uses them? What potential do they bear and what challenges do they face? At the moment, we are exploring the trends underway in digital health apps at a number of events, for example at this week’s AOK-Tag 2016 (AOK Day 2016). For this event, we took another look at the data contained in the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Gesundheitsmonitor survey and analyzed those findings that provided information on people’s use of health apps. The data – which were collected in summer 2015 – show that 29% of Germans already have a health app installed on their smartphones. More than one in three people indicated they would use this app for the purpose of self-management if they fell ill. One in five people indicated they would welcome the idea of having their own health data – drawn from the information already held at real-life doctors’ offices – on their smartphones. Nevertheless, data security and data protection are also considerable issues on citizens’ minds.