How Mobile Health Apps Can Help Patients with Chronic Illnesses
<p>Cell phone apps help you manage your calendar, navigate your way around a city, and listen to music. Now, they can also help you manage a chronic illness: more than 165,000 mobile health apps are now available to help patients manage their diabetes, substance abuse, and depression, among other conditions.</p><p>For our latest Q&A, we spoke with Commonwealth Fund grantee Karandeep Singh, M.D., assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, about his team’s evaluation of patient-facing mobile health apps, findings from which are reported in a new <em>Health Affairs</em> article. The study identified a dizzying array of app choices and finds that organized medicine provides little guidance to consumers in selecting products. </p>
<p>Singh discusses the potential for apps to help patients self-manage their conditions, the limitation of consumer ratings, and the importance of robust privacy policies. </p>