The Promise and Peril of Mobile Health Applications for Diabetes and Endocrinology
- 30 April 2013
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Hindawi Limited in Pediatric Diabetes
- Vol. 14 (4), 231-238
- https://doi.org/10.1111/pedi.12034
Abstract
We are in the midst of what some have called a “mobile health revolution”. Medical applications (“apps”) for mobile phones are proliferating in the marketplace and clinicians are likely encountering patients with questions about the medical value of these apps. We conducted a review of medical apps focused on endocrine disease. We found a higher percentage of relevant apps in our searches of the iPhone app store compared with the Android marketplace. For our diabetes search in the iPhone store, the majority of apps (33%) focused on health tracking (blood sugars, insulin doses, carbohydrates), requiring manual entry of health data. Only two apps directly inputted blood sugars from glucometers attached to the mobile phone. The remainder of diabetes apps were teaching/training apps (22%), food reference databases (8%), social blogs/forums (5%), and physician directed apps (8%). We found a number of insulin dose calculator apps which technically meet criteria for being a medically regulated mobile application, but did not find evidence for FDA‐approval despite their availability to consumers. Far fewer apps were focused on other endocrine disease and included medical reference for the field of endocrinology, access to endocrine journals, height predictors, medication trackers, and fertility apps. Although mobile health apps have great potential for improving chronic disease care, they face a number of challenges including lack of evidence of clinical effectiveness, lack of integration with the health care delivery system, the need for formal evaluation and review and organized searching for health apps, and potential threats to safety and privacy.Keywords
This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Effectiveness of Mobile-Health Technology-Based Health Behaviour Change or Disease Management Interventions for Health Care Consumers: A Systematic ReviewPLoS Medicine, 2013
- Open mHealth Architecture: An Engine for Health Care InnovationScience, 2010
- A Ubiquitous Chronic Disease Care system using cellular phones and the internetDiabetic Medicine, 2009
- Mobile communication using a mobile phone with a glucometer for glucose control in Type 2 patients with diabetes: as effective as an Internet-based glucose monitoring systemJournal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 2009
- Evaluating the impact of mobile telephone technology on type 2 diabetic patients’ self‐management: the NICHE pilot studyJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 2008
- Internet Diabetic Patient Management Using a Short Messaging Service Automatically Produced by a Knowledge Matrix SystemDiabetes Care, 2007
- A randomized controlled trial of Sweet Talk, a text‐messaging system to support young people with diabetesDiabetic Medicine, 2006
- Telemedical support to improve glycemic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitusEuropean Journal of Pediatrics, 2006
- Cellular phone transferred self blood glucose monitoring: prerequisites for positive outcomePractical Diabetes International, 2004
- Randomized controlled pilot trial of a hand-held patient-oriented, insulin regimen optimizerMedical Informatics, 1996