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Evaluating and selecting mobile health apps: strategies for healthcare providers and healthcare organizations

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Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Mobile applications (apps) to improve health are proliferating, but before healthcare providers or organizations can recommend an app to the patients they serve, they need to be confident the app will be user-friendly and helpful for the target disease or behavior. This paper summarizes seven strategies for evaluating and selecting health-related apps: (1) Review the scientific literature, (2) Search app clearinghouse websites, (3) Search app stores, (4) Review app descriptions, user ratings, and reviews, (5) Conduct a social media query within professional and, if available, patient networks, (6) Pilot the apps, and (7) Elicit feedback from patients. The paper concludes with an illustrative case example. Because of the enormous range of quality among apps, strategies for evaluating them will be necessary for adoption to occur in a way that aligns with core values in healthcare, such as the Hippocratic principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Brianna Haskins, MS, for her editorial assistance.

Financial disclosure

Boudreaux: Dr. Boudreaux owns stock in and receives consulting fees from Polaris Health Directions, a small business that produces software for clinical outcomes management. They do not produce mobile health apps.

Waring: Dr. Waring is supported by National Institutes of Health grants KL2TR000160 and 1U01HL105268. She has no other financial disclosures.

Hayes: Declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Sadasivam: Dr. Sadasivam is supported by National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute Career Development Award (K07CA172677). He has no other financial disclosures.

Mullen: Declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Pagoto: Dr. Pagoto is on the advisory board for Empower Fitness®, has consulted for Apple®, and receives funds to produce social media content for Sears® Fitstudio.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, and Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, LA-189, 55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester, MA, 01655, USA

    Edwin D Boudreaux PhD

  2. Division of Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases and Vulnerable Populations, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Molly E Waring PhD

  3. Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Rashelle B Hayes PhD & Sherry Pagoto PhD

  4. Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Rajani S Sadasivam PhD

  5. Department of Kinesiology & Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Sean Mullen PhD

Authors
  1. Edwin D Boudreaux PhD
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  2. Molly E Waring PhD
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  3. Rashelle B Hayes PhD
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  4. Rajani S Sadasivam PhD
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  5. Sean Mullen PhD
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  6. Sherry Pagoto PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edwin D Boudreaux PhD.

Additional information

Implications

Researchers: Prior to designing and testing new mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps), researchers should systematically evaluate the apps that already exist in their target domain.

Practitioners: mHealth holds tremendous potential for improving patient health; however, healthcare providers and healthcare organizations will need to standardize their identification, evaluation, and selection of health related apps to maximize their utility, safety, and impact.

Policymakers: Policymakers and influential healthcare organizations should consider evaluating and vetting health related apps using standardized evaluation criteria, such as those used by the UK’s National Health Service (http://apps.nhs.uk).

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Boudreaux, E.D., Waring, M.E., Hayes, R.B. et al. Evaluating and selecting mobile health apps: strategies for healthcare providers and healthcare organizations. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 4, 363–371 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-014-0293-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-014-0293-9

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