1. Mobile Apps for Consumer Health
Richard James, U. Pennsylvania Biomedical Library

2. Smartphone Demographics and Usage
2015 Pew Global Attitudes Survey
2014 Pew Internet Project Survey

3. Smartphone Demographics and Usage
Younger adults — 15% of Americans ages are heavily dependent on a smartphone for online access.
Those with low household incomes and levels of educational attainment — Some 13% of Americans with an annual household income of less than $30,000 per year are smartphone-dependent. Just 1% of Americans from households earning more than $75,000 per year rely on their smartphones to a similar degree for online access.
Non-whites — 12% of African Americans and 13% of Latinos are smartphone-dependent, compared with 4% of whites.
Pew US Smartphone Use in 2015

4. Smartphone Demographics and Usage
2015 Pew Global Attitudes Survey
2014 Pew Internet Project Survey

5. Mobile Health Apps by Category
Categories for the approx. 165,000 health-related apps available for iOS and Android
Estimated 1.7 Billion downloads of apps in this category globally.

6. Mobile Health Apps by Category
“Fitness”: including weight loss/calorie tracking, workout and activity tracking
Sleep Quality
Menstrual Cycle Monitoring
Diabetes self-care
Migraine
Anxiety
Health Information
Pharmacy

7. Consumer Interest in m-Health Apps

8. Consumer Interest in m-Health Apps

9. Consumer Interest in mHealth Apps
Use of Mobile Apps: A Patient Centered Approach. Academic Emergency Medicine. 2015;22:765–768

10. The market is ready, consumers are ready, how about providers?

11. Healthcare Interest in mHealth Apps
Currently, 16% of Healthcare Professionals Use/Recommend Apps to clients and patients.
In the same survey, almost 50% said they planned to do so within the next 5 years.
In a separate survey, about 40% of physicians said they did not know enough about apps to be comfortable recommending any.
Modern Healthcare : (
hAp://quan,a-inc.com/media/press-releases/quan,amd-poll-finds-physicians-are-split-on-the-use-of-medical-apps-and-42-believe-more-regula,on-is-necessary/

13. http://www. commonwealthfund

14. Oversight and Regulation of Apps

15. Oversight and Regulation of Apps
App store policy for Apple: Android does not regulate apps

17. In top 5 health apps (until revoked)
Many HTN apps include high quality info

18. Missed 1 in 3 of potentially significant concerns

19. Of the six monitoring apps highlighted here from the App Store’s “Popular Medical Apps” page, only one documented a plausible connection to any kind of medically- related expertise
Popular Medical apps, November ,

20. Smartphone Apps for Calculating Insulin Dose: a Systematic Assessment (

21. Colorectal Smartphone Apps: Opportunities and risks Colorectal Dis
Colorectal Smartphone Apps: Opportunities and risks Colorectal Dis Sep;14(9):e doi: /j x

23. Alternatively, just download Pokemon Go

24. The Impact of Low Health Literacy

25. What is the “CRAAP Test”?
A standard classroom tool for teaching information literacy and source evaluation:
C Currency or Timeliness of Information
R Relevance and importance of the source
A Authority, Credentials, and Affiliation of the source
A Accuracy of the information presented
P Purpose of the information and its authors
Standards for this tool originated in print texts, and have been developed to apply to internet sources in an effective way.

26. What is the “CRAAP Test”?

27. Applying the “CRAAP Test” to Apps
There are well-established strategies for finding the elements of the CRAAP test:
Author information and affiliations on book jackets and article headers.
Date markers and domains for websites: .mil, .gov, etc.
Critical reading to discover point-of-view, biases, and intentions.
Functionality of web links, “about” information, author profiles, design.
These standard approaches do not hold up well when evaluating apps.

28. Applying the “CRAAP Test” to Apps
There are well-established strategies for finding the elements of the CRAAP test:
“Authors” of apps are usually software developers
The classic test is keyed to textual and website structural elements
Absence of significant text content within most apps
Interactivity and ease-of-use is not measured
Apps are predominantly commercial products

29. Applying the “CRAAP Test” to Apps
Queensland University of Technology developed the Mobile Apps Rating Scale (MARS)
Incorporates the evaluation of app platform-specific design and interaction features.
However, information and evidence quality scores are weighted equally with aesthetics and design quality scores.
Try this with your own favorite app: MARS Evaluation
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30. Exercise: AliveCor

31. Exercise: AliveCor

32. Exercise: AliveCor
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33. Future Trends?
In Search of a Few Good Apps. JAMA. 2014;311(18): doi: /jama
(ONC: Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology)

34. Future Trends
Count of articles by year categorized with MESH: “Mobile Applications”: extracted November 1, 2016

35. Future Trends? Integration into Healthcare

36. Future Trends? Commercial Curation
Repeating the mistakes of internet past: development, production, and persistence of apps is challenging to keep up with.

37. Future Trends? Certification

38. Future Trends? Trusted Sources
RxUniverse: Mt. Sinai App Lab project: creating, curating, and linking condition-appropriate apps within the EHR

39. Future Trends? Professions and Societies
RxUniverse: Mt. Sinai App Lab project: creating, curating, and linking condition-appropriate apps within the EHR

40. Future Trends? Professions and Societies
Xcertia Project

41. ? Questions? E: rjame@upenn.edu T: 215-746-4034 @Pennnursinglib