Hello. I'm Dr Arefa Cassoobhoy, a practicing internist, Medscape advisor, and senior medical director for WebMD. Welcome to Morning Report, our 1-minute news story for primary care.
Rating the Healthcare Apps
New apps for health and disease are coming on the market every day and now number more than 300,000. There are so many of them that clinicians might have a hard time deciding which to recommend to their patients.
A new study aims to help by rating the best healthcare apps. The authors identified top apps by looking at 571 published studies, including randomized trials.
Highly rated apps fall into two categories of interest to clinicians. The first is prevention and wellness, and includes apps for exercise, weight management, stress, and smoking cessation. The top disease-management apps include those for cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. Other notable apps cover atrial fibrillation, cardiac rehab, and substance abuse.
Here's a list and links to the most highly clinically rated apps (Tables 1 and 2). Apps might not work for everyone, but the digital health movement suggests that they have a role for some of your patients and may make your life easier by helping your patients to better manage their health.
Table 1. Top Clinically Rated Apps for Wellness and Prevention
| Category | App | Maker |
|---|---|---|
| Exercise | FitBit | FitBit |
| Healthy eating and weight management | Noom Coach: Health and Weight | Noom |
| Stress management | Headspace | Headspace |
| Smoking cessation | Clickotine | Click Therapeutics |
| Alcohol moderation | Drinkaware | Drinkaware Trust |
| Source: IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science | ||
Table 2. Top Clinically Rated Apps for Condition Management
| Condition | App | Maker |
|---|---|---|
| Alcohol and substance abuse | Pear reSet | Pear Therapeutics |
| Diabetes prevention | Omada | Omada Health |
| Diabetes | BlueStar Diabetes | WellDoc |
| Atrial fibrillation screening and dysrhythmias | Kardia | AliveCor |
| Hypertension | Twine-Collaborative Care | Twine Health |
| Cardiac rehabilitation | Healarium (Mayo Clinic Instance) | Apollo Medical Holdings |
| Cancer | MoovCare | Sivan Innovations |
| Asthma | Propeller Health | Reciprocal Labs dba Propeller Health |
| Source: IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science | ||
Follow Dr Cassoobhoy on Twitter at @ArefaMD
Medscape Internal Medicine © 2017 WebMD, LLC
Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: Healthcare Apps to Recommend to Patients - Medscape - Dec 01, 2017.
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