At the recent Mobile Health Initiative, mHealth Networking Conference in Washington, D.C. most panel presentations and keynote talks highlighted the essential role of physicians and health care providers in supporting rather than blocking consumers’ adoption of mobile health applications and wireless medical devices.

 

Clinical practitioners were highly represented among conference attendees, indicating that many of them are getting the message. Ed Daniels, a consultant for Point of Care Partners (and a Smart Health columnist), weighed into some critical issues in the consumer self-help mobile-enabled movement in his presentation on “Future Directions in Symptom-Driven Consumer Applications.”

 

He provided a challenging future scenario for clinicians and health application developers with a balanced view of the pros and cons of adopting smartphones as a platform for interactive health information and advice.

 

Daniels defines “symptom-driven” as mobile health apps where navigation is controlled by user-entered medical information, and where the application may be programmed to use that data to record patient symptoms over time, or to recommend treatments, or connect the user with services, physicians and hospital facilities.

 

Examples that he discussed in his presentation include apps available from WebMD Mobile (which recorded over a million iPhone (News - Alert) downloads for its application in 2009, making it one of the most popular apps on Apple’s App Store), iTriage, Medscape and dozens of other companies. While this category is currently one of the fastest growing areas of mobile health, Daniels pointed out a number of barriers that need to be addressed. Symptom-driven app developers need to be aware that some of the core features of their solutions have already been patented, leaving them open to patent infringement charges and IP licensing fees.

 

Even more daunting, advanced mobile apps that use capabilities of a smartphone to automatically collect, record and report patient health data may soon be subject to scrutiny and regulation by the FDA. While the FDA doesn’t currently regulate mobile health apps, the more sophisticated mobile solutions are starting to look like medical devices – which are already subject to FDA registration and approval. More mobile health apps are likely to fit the definition of regulated devices as smartphones connect to biosensors and begin to collect patient data automatically. According to Daniels, “If software is intended to provide cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease then the FDA may consider it a medical device.”

 

Along with other Mobi Health presenters, Daniels noted that physicians may act as gatekeepers to slow broad acceptance of consumer initiated, symptom-driven applications as legitimate healthcare solutions. In addition to the dangers of misuse and misinterpretation by consumers, a number of panels reflected the concern that if patients start to rely on health care advice from their phones, they may be less likely to consult with their doctors about serious conditions.

 

Despite these barriers, Daniels concludes that the long-term future of mobile health applications is positive at least as a first line of advice and a point of referral for face to face medical appointments.

 

“More people in the world have mobile devices than have face-to-face access to a knowledgeable care provider, and some people will be more willing to access information on their own device.” As the technology evolves, and physician acceptance increases, Daniels believes that mobile health apps have strong potential to provide better access to higher quality care at a lower cost – a goal that all the mobile health conference participants would likely endorse.