Health Apps: Evaluation of Existing Guidelines
[Status: Completed]
This project addresses the under-regulated landscape of mobile health and health apps, where users exchange data for services. By comparing existing quality assurance guidelines, the research reveals their inadequacy, fragmentation across agencies, and lack of practical guidance on privacy and data protection. The project advocates for trans-national minimum quality assurance standards to guide health app development and implementation, raising further questions about effective policy instruments and relevant stakeholders for regulation.
Project Partner
external page OECD
Project Team
Agata Ferretti
Effy Vayena
Description
In the grey under-regulated zone of mobile health and health apps, people willingly exchange their data for a variety of services and for the feeling of empowerment these new technologies offer. Through research, we are comparing quality assurance guidelines in the field of health apps.
Ferretti, A., Ronchi, E., & Vayena, E. (2019). From principles to practice: benchmarking government guidance on health apps. The Lancet Digital Health, 1(2). external page https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(19)30027-5
Findings
Our research highlights that these policies are not comprehensive; that they spread across different agencies and lack practical guidance on privacy and data protection principles. Therefore, we argue for trans-national minimum quality assurance standards that can guide health app development and implementation.
Some follow-up questions for this research could be: what are the best policy instruments to intervene in regulating something that is already widely used across nations? And who are the stakeholders these policies should address?
