mHealth and the need of evaluation processes

Abstract

There are currently a great deal of available health applications available on various app-stores around the globe and more is being added each day. With that vast amount of available options, which health applications are trustworthy and offers the functionality that the users are looking for? With the current regulations and classification processes, it is difficult to know if mHealth services offers the high standards that it should. This thesis investigates the need for mHealth services tobe subject of an evaluation process, by a health organization or a government agency, to ensure that quality standards are high. We discover the current “state-of-the-art” of mHealth and the privacy-and usability aspects of mHealth, we find outif evaluated and approved mHealth applications are believed to be more attractive to use than the non-evaluated counterparts, and lastly, we identify what aspects is important to evaluate of mHealth applications. To provide answers to the thesis, we perform a literature review and distribute a survey to a small group of potential users of mHealth services. The literature review provides information about the current state of mHealth around the globe. Moreover, the literature review also reveals that both usability, but especially privacy, is of major importance when creating mHealth services. We also discover that there are voices from field experts that suggests mHealth services to be subject of an evaluation process, similar to what we suggest in this thesis. With the survey, we identify the respondents’ current utilization of mHealth services. We also find out what aspects they believe is important and if their trust and utilization of an evaluated and approved mHealth service would be affected compared to a non-evaluated counterpart. The respondents of the survey is parents of young children, a group that is likely in need of medical attention in one way or another and still has the technical experience that is required to answer the survey