'More' Health Apps Don’t Equal Better Health. Quality Over Quantity... & How Do We Measure it?

A report from the Institute for Human Data Science tells us there are more than 350,000 health apps available to consumers. More than 90,000 of these were added just in 2020. This boom in the digital health space has triggered huge investment too, with a record $24 Billion invested in the same year.

But are they any good? Do they work? Are they safe?

Seems that's not so rosy an outlook, as patients, consumers and Doctors report declining quality and efficacy. The pandemic has influenced the surge in digital health demand and usage, as we reach for our smartphones to cope with a multitude of mental and physical health challenges. Medical professionals and the rest of us are looking towards digital self-care, monitoring, therapeutics, and interventions.

But despite the many new health apps coming to market, many are soon quietly discontinued due to lack of updates and use. App stores routinely purge apps that don't follow guidelines, are out of date or just don't work.

The pandemic spurred hundreds of COVID related apps and digital solutions. AI software jumped at the chance to bring much-needed support to the front lines. Or that was the intention, anyway. Hundreds of predictive tools were developed, and none helped. Literally, none of them (Track and Trace anyone?). In June the Turing Institute concluded that AI tools had made little if any impact against COVID. A British Medical Journal report found none of the tools they looked at were fit for clinical use.

Consumer and Healthcare Demand for Digital Tools

This crowded market with dysfunctional or ineffective apps is a huge disservice to consumers who actively want to use them. A recent ORCHA report found that 65% of UK adults have a positive attitude towards digital health. There are regional and demographic variations, but the demand is clear. We want our doctors to be able to prescribe credible, safe and effective digital health solutions. The report also found that certain ethnic groups were even more favourable towards using apps which suggests an opportunity to better reach underserved groups and address inequalities.

How to Find Safe and Effective Apps

The digital health market is booming, yet unregulated. This leaves Doctors, patients, and consumers wary and under-served. ORCHA tests and lists trusted apps following comprehensive assessment and compliance. Our own app, MUTU System for pregnancy and postpartum symptoms is proud to have achieved a 91% score with ORCHA. MUTU showed clear and proven clinical benefits as well as passing safety, security, accessibility and other criteria.

NHS Apps Library Fail

Sadly some UK policy makers have taken backward steps in making trusted apps like these available and known to patients. Earlier this year NHSX deleted all paid apps from the NHS Apps Library. Whilst never particularly widely known or used by the public, the NHS Apps Library did provide a trusted resources for healthcare professionals. Primary and secondary care providers have neither the time, skills nor inclination to test apps. The library offered assurance and trust.

High standards of compliance and testing were required for inclusion, which developers worked exhaustively to meet. Such high quality and assurance is rarely possible where apps can be downloaded for free. This policy to only recommend free apps removes choice and impacts quality and safety.

How We Get Access to Better Health Apps

Policy makers and politicians talk a lot about embracing digital solutions. But the reality for innovators and developers to get safe and clinically effective apps to patients, is fraught with blocks, frustrations, and ineffective processes.

No credible innovator or developer would say with integrity that the path to healthcare adoption or approval should be easy. However systems and processes for comprehensive evaluation and assessment do exist. In the form of assessors like ORCHA, and the due diligence of programmes like the NHS Innovation Accelerator Fellowship. NIA Fellows and their innovations undergo rigorous and exhaustive assessment to achieve final selection.

We cut our beloved NHS a lot of slack, and rightly so. It is a chronically underfunded, yet epic and incredible gift we all treasure and desire to protect and uphold at all costs.

But its ability and willingness to understand, assess and work with trusted credible digital solutions with proven efficacy and clinical or workforce benefits is definitely work in progress.

Meanwhile, check out trusted apps and developers below and when you find the good ones mention them to your GP. More than 80,000 women have used MUTU System to date. Where direct access is not possible for any reason (it costs ￡99 for a year), then demand for employee benefits or GP prescription is how we can address that inequality or lack of credible information.

Find trusted apps via the ORCHA Directory here and more on their approach to assessing evidence here.

View Wendy Powell on NIA Alumni site here NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) Fellows here