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SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

Scripps Researchers Use mHealth Wearables to Track Flu Outbreaks

The study used data from Fitbit users over two years to determine who was experiencing a flu-like illness. It shows that mHealth wearables could be used to identify and possibly even anticipate viral outbreaks.

• Led by digital health expert Eric Topol, MD, researchers at the Scripps Research Translational Institute used data from roughly 50,000 people wearing Fitbits between 2016 and 2018 and were able to plot outbreaks of seasonal respiratory infections like the flu.
• Researchers found they could identify and possibly even anticipate an outbreak by the activities of Fitbit users who became sick.

By Eric Wicklund

January 17, 2020 – Researchers have found a way to use mHealth wearables to tackle population health concerns.

Led by digital health expert Eric Topol, MD, researchers at the Scripps Research Translational Institute used data from roughly 50,000 people wearing Fitbits between 2016 and 2018 and were able to plot outbreaks of seasonal respiratory infections like the flu.

The first-of-its-kind study tracked sleep patterns, resting heart rate (RHR) and activity among users in Texas, California, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, and compared that data to influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) recorded by the US Centers for Disease Control in those states.

Researchers found they could identify and possibly even anticipate an outbreak by the activities of Fitbit users who became sick. People who develop the flu, they noted, tend to have an elevated RHR, sleep more and move around less.

“Activity and physiological trackers are increasingly used in the USA and globally to monitor individual health,” Topol and his colleagues said in a study published this week in The Lancet. “By accessing these data, it could be possible to improve real-time and geographically refined influenza surveillance. This information could be vital to enact timely outbreak response measures to prevent further transmission of influenza cases during outbreaks.”

Joining Topol in the research were Jennifer M. Radin, PhD; Nathan E. Wineinger, PhD, and Steve R. Steinhubl, MD, all of the San Diego-based organization, which has conducted dozens of mHealth and telehealth studies over the past decade.

This study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, aims to improve population health management for a virus that annually affects 20 percent of children and 7 percent of adults in the US, and which causes as many as 650,000 deaths worldwide. Traditional surveillance methods usually lag one to three weeks behind the outbreak, putting healthcare providers at a disadvantage in curbing the spread of the virus.

Topol and his colleagues are looking at mHealth to reduce that disadvantage and give providers and public health officials an opportunity to stop and outbreak earlier.

There are some challenges. While roughly 10 percent of the US population, according to a 2016 study, now uses wearables, that percentage has to be higher to make the results more meaningful. In addition, any connected health platform used to gather data shoud be able to draw information from a wide variety of wearables, including smart watches and smart clothing.

And finally, such a platform would need to be careful to distinguish behaviors caused by the onset of the flu with normal behaviors, and sensitive enough to detect those changes in behavior at the earliest possible moment.

“In the future, wearables could include additional sensors to prospectively track blood pressure, temperature, electrocardiogram, and cough analysis, which could be used to further characterize an individual’s baseline and identify abnormalities,” the study concluded. “Capturing physiological and behavioral data from a growing number of wearable device users globally could greatly improve timeliness and precision of public health responses and even inform individual clinical care. It could also fill major gaps in regions where influenza surveillance data are not available.”

Source: https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/scripps-researchers-use-mhealth-wearables-to-track-flu-outbreaks

SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

Current And Future Doctors Are More Than Ready to Use mHealth Wearables

A Stanford Medicine survey finds that doctors, residents and medical students are finding value in data drawn from mHealth wearables – and they’re using them as well. But they aren’t getting the training they need or want.

• Current and future physicians are eager to use self-reported data from patients with mHealth wearables
• In fact, they’re using wearables themselves to track health concerns.  

By Eric Wicklund

January 14, 2020 – Current and future physicians are eager to use self-reported data from patients with mHealth wearables – in fact, they’re using wearables themselves to track health concerns.

That’s one takeaway from Stanford Medicine’s 2020 Health Trends Report, which finds that physicians are ready to use mHealth and telehealth tools even if they aren’t getting the right training to use new technology. Instead, they’re looking for the help they need to apply connected health concepts to healthcare.

“We found that current and future physicians are not only open to new technologies but are actively seeking training in subjects such as data science to enhance care for their patients,” Lloyd Minor, MD, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a press release. “We are encouraged by these findings and the opportunity they present to improve patient outcomes. At the same time, we must be clear-eyed about the challenges that may stymie progress.”

The survey shows an eagerness among those practicing medicine (or getting ready to enter the field) to use connected health technology, including consumer-facing mHealth wearables, even as questions remain on their reliability and some payers are reluctant to cover their use.

According to the survey, which gathered the thoughts of more than 700 physicians, residents and medical students around the country, 83 percent of physicians and 79 percent of students and residents see value in self-reported data from patients using wearables. Almost 80 percent say that data holds value in clinical care management.

And they know from experience. Roughly half of those surveyed are using wearables, with 60 percent of students and residents and 71 percent of physicians saying they use digital health data to inform their own health decisions.

That said, those surveyed don’t think they’re getting the right training on how to use the technology.

Only 18 percent of students and residents said the education they’re now getting is “very helpful,” while 44 percent of physicians said their training was either “not very helpful” or “not helpful at all.” This should put pressure on teaching hospitals to improve curricula and training programs.

It’s also compelling current and future physicians to find new sources of information to prepare them for a digital health workplace – at a time when stress and burnout is high in the medical ranks.

According to the survey, 73 percent of medical students and 47 percent of physicians are seeking additional training, primarily in how to use digital health data. Roughly a third are looking for help on how to use artificial intelligence tools.

“The rise of the data-driven physician represents an opportunity to positively transform medicine and improve health outcomes by bringing new technologies and insights to the patient bedside,” Stanford Medicine officials said in the press release. “However, as it stands today, medical professionals still feel insufficiently trained to do so. Moreover, promising medical talent is being held back by challenges such as achieving work-life balance and student debt.”

Source: https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/current-and-future-doctors-are-more-than-ready-to-use-mhealth-wearables

SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

mHealth Market is Expected to Be the Fastest Growing By 2025

By [email protected]

• According to experts from TMR, the global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017.
• This revenue is expected to gain an impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025. Experts project this growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.

The global mHelath market bears a highly fragmented vendor landscape, says Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a recently published report. This is solely because of the existence of large, medium, and small-scale players in the market. Withings, FitBit, Apple Inc., Jawbone, and Dexcom are the dominant players working in the global mHelath market.

Out of the various strategic alliances adopted by players in the global mHelath market to hold a sizeable stakes, capitalizing on the emerging opportunities and acquiring latest technologies and tools has gained maximum popularity. The level of competition among leading vendors is getting escalated with rising use of technologies and smart devices such as wearables. The global mHelath market is expected to grow steadily due to the presence of highly established players who are concentrating on improving their product quality, facilitating product differentiation, and enhancing geographical reach. These companies are also attempting to introduce advanced and new products into the industry on a daily basis.

According to experts from TMR, the global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017. This revenue is expected to gain an impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025. Experts project this growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.

Among various products in the global mHelath market, connected medical devices hold substantial share, which is expected to boost the global mHelath market during the forecast period. This is because of rising focus towards fitness and increasing use of heart rate monitors among people.  Region wise, North America is expected to lead the global mHelath market in the coming years. This is attributed to a strong technological infrastructure along with high healthcare expenditure in the region.

Integration of Wireless Technologies to Fuel mHealth Market’s Growth

Health-related technologies and mobile applications are often known as mHealth, which helps in managing patients’ experiences. Such health mobile technologies and apps utilize advanced data analytics to help medical professionals in providing their patients best care at low cost. These health mobile applications facilitate easy and better health management through simple apps such as diet, exercise trackers, and calorie-counting. Such USPs are driving the global mHelath market. Along with this, rising penetration of internet connections and smartphones, and rapid technological advancements in healthcare industry are the factors majorly fueling growth in the global mHelath market.

Furthermore, mHelath ensures continuous communication between medical professionals and patients, thereby allow physicians to monitor, and diagnose patients without seeing them in person. Such benefits are also boosting the global mHelath market. Apart from these, rapid adoption of connected devices for monitoring various chronic diseases, and increasing demand for cost-effective medical services are also propelling expansion in the global mHelath market.

Low Physician Density May Hinder mHealth Market’s Growth

Growing reluctance of physicians to move over conventional methods, lack of regulations, concerns about data security, and low density of skilled professionals are some of the major challenges in the global mHealth market. Nonetheless, persistent demand and rising prevalence of   various lifestyle disorders is believed to help industry players overcome these challenges in the near future.

About Us

Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.

Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.

TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision.

Source: https://pronewstime.com/2020/01/08/mhealth-market-is-expected-to-be-the-fastest-growing-by-2025/

Patient Self-Monitoring Extends Physicians’ Reach for Proactive Monitoring of Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence and any Arrhythmia.

• Confirms market traction with orders being placed by physician groups for the newly launched HeartCheck™ CardiBeat Handheld ECG monitor and GEMS™ Mobile Smartphone app for prescribed in-home arrhythmia monitoring
• Dr. Yaariv Khaykin, Physician Lead at PACE and Chief Medical Information Officer at Southlake Regional Health Centre, stated, “We are very excited at the opportunity to introduce the use of this home-based ECG/arrhythmia monitoring technology to our patients empowering them to take greater charge of their health.”

TORONTO, ONTARIO / January 6, 2020 / CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSX VENTURE:EKG) (“CardioComm” or the “Company“), a global provider of consumer heart monitoring and electrocardiogram (“ECG“) device and software solutions, confirms market traction with orders being placed by physician groups for the newly launched HeartCheck™ CardiBeat Handheld ECG monitor and GEMS™ Mobile Smartphone app for prescribed in-home arrhythmia monitoring.

Partners in Advanced Cardiac Evaluation (“PACE“), the largest arrhythmia practice in Ontario (Canada) placed a first order of the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat Handheld ECG monitors and is recommending its patients to use the devices for one year of in-home, self-monitoring with an emphasis on detecting a recurrence of Atrial Fibrillation (“AF“) following cardiac ablation treatment for AF. The Company confirms that additional hospital affiliated physician groups have also purchased the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat ECG devices for evaluation in their respective practices with additional orders expected in early 2020.

AF is a life-threatening arrhythmia that is difficult to treat. Cardiac ablation is a procedure commonly used to correct AF; however, AF recurrence after ablation is common and can be “silent”, occuring without any symptoms, discomfort or warning to the patient (See Note 1). PACE patients will use the GEMS™ Mobile Smartphone app to record ECGs taken by the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat which will then be automatically forwarded by CardioComm’s SMART Monitoring ECG service directly into the patient’s cardiologist’s Electronic Medical Record (“EMR”). Should any submitted ECG recordings show a recurrence of AF or a presence of other cardiac arrhythmias, the patients are contacted by PACE and follow-up visits scheduled. ECG reports generated through GEMS™ Mobile are eligible for medical service reimbursement in both Canada and the US.

Dr. Yaariv Khaykin, Physician Lead at PACE and Chief Medical Information Officer at Southlake Regional Health Centre, stated, “We are very excited at the opportunity to introduce the use of this home-based ECG/arrhythmia monitoring technology to our patients empowering them to take greater charge of their health.”

The GEMS™ Mobile app is available in Android and Apple Smartphone compatible versions as a free downloadable app and allows users to generate unlimited ECG reports to show to their physician. The app also allows users to request their ECG to be reviewed by CardioComm’s SMART Monitoring ECG reading service where the user does not have direct connectivity to their treating physician.

To learn more about CardioComm’s products and for further updates regarding HeartCheck™ ECG device integrations, please visit the Company’s websites at www.cardiocommsolutions.com and www.theheartcheck.com.

Note 1: Heart Rhythm Journal – 2017 HRS/EHRA/ECAS/APHRS/SOLAECE expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation: Executive summary

About CardioComm Solutions

CardioComm Solutions’ patented and proprietary technology is used in products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients. Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm Solutions has earned the ISO 13485:2016 MDSAP certification, is HIPAA compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Etienne Grima, Chief Executive Officer

1-877-977-9425 x227

[email protected]

[email protected]

Forward-looking statements

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to these items. Such statements and information reflect management’s current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.

In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation, Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations).

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: CardioComm Solutions, Inc

View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/572152/Physician-Groups-Order-The-HeartcheckTM-Cardibeat-For-In-Home-Arrhythmia-And-Atrial-Fibrillation-Monitoring

SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

mHealth Market is Expected to Expand at a CAGR of 22.1% During 2017 to 2025

• According to experts from TMR, the global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017
• This revenue is expected to gain an impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025
• Experts project this growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025

Reita Cabrera

The global mHelath market bears a highly fragmented vendor landscape, says Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a recently published report. This is solely because of the existence of large, medium, and small-scale players in the market. Withings, FitBit, Apple Inc., Jawbone, and Dexcom are the dominant players working in the global mHelath market.

Out of the various strategic alliances adopted by players in the global mHelath market to hold a sizeable stakes, capitalizing on the emerging opportunities and acquiring latest technologies and tools has gained maximum popularity. The level of competition among leading vendors is getting escalated with rising use of technologies and smart devices such as wearables. The global mHelath market is expected to grow steadily due to the presence of highly established players who are concentrating on improving their product quality, facilitating product differentiation, and enhancing geographical reach. These companies are also attempting to introduce advanced and new products into the industry on a daily basis.

According to experts from TMR, the global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017. This revenue is expected to gain an impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025. Experts project this growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.

Among various products in the global mHelath market, connected medical devices hold substantial share, which is expected to boost the global mHelath market during the forecast period. This is because of rising focus towards fitness and increasing use of heart rate monitors among people.  Region wise, North America is expected to lead the global mHelath market in the coming years. This is attributed to a strong technological infrastructure along with high healthcare expenditure in the region.

Integration of Wireless Technologies to Fuel mHealth Market’s Growth

Health-related technologies and mobile applications are often known as mHealth, which helps in managing patients’ experiences. Such health mobile technologies and apps utilize advanced data analytics to help medical professionals in providing their patients best care at low cost. These health mobile applications facilitate easy and better health management through simple apps such as diet, exercise trackers, and calorie-counting. Such USPs are driving the global mHelath market. Along with this, rising penetration of internet connections and smartphones, and rapid technological advancements in healthcare industry are the factors majorly fueling growth in the global mHelath market.

Furthermore, mHelath ensures continuous communication between medical professionals and patients, thereby allow physicians to monitor, and diagnose patients without seeing them in person. Such benefits are also boosting the global mHelath market. Apart from these, rapid adoption of connected devices for monitoring various chronic diseases, and increasing demand for cost-effective medical services are also propelling expansion in the global mHelath market.

Low Physician Density May Hinder mHealth Market’s Growth

Growing reluctance of physicians to move over conventional methods, lack of regulations, concerns about data security, and low density of skilled professionals are some of the major challenges in the global mHealth market. Nonetheless, persistent demand and rising prevalence of   various lifestyle disorders is believed to help industry players overcome these challenges in the near future.

About Us

Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.

Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.

TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision.

Source: http://newsdistribute.com/2019/12/23/mhealth-market-is-expected-to-expand-at-a-cagr-of-22-1-during-2017-to-2025/

SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

What’s App? – End of Year Round-up on mHealth App Developments

• Advantages of mHealth apps include streamlining the exchange of health information and a better user experience
• From a data perspective, apps can use big data to analyse unstructured data and identify patterns and environmental factors that will improve patient treatment

Mason Hayes & Curran

An Irish Times special report estimates that over seven million patients worldwide are actively using digital health apps as part of their care plan. The availability of remote and mobile healthcare solutions relating to fitness, wellbeing, health and medical treatment could be life-changing for those living in countries lacking easy access to medical care.

Advantages of mHealth apps include streamlining the exchange of health information and a better user experience. From a data perspective, apps can use big data to analyse unstructured data and identify patterns and environmental factors that will improve patient treatment.

Government adoption

With this in mind, many governments are encouraging the uptake of mHealth apps.

In the UK, the NHS website has a digital library showcasing mHealth apps. It lists mHealth apps that have been deemed as clinically safe. The functionality of the apps is varied and provides services like repeat prescriptions services, speech and language therapy, and instant access to medical records. Patients can even use certain apps to monitor their conditions such as diabetes.

The HSE in Ireland is following the lead of the NHS. It is working with Orcha, a company that reviews health apps, to provide an Irish eHealth app library that lists apps reviewed by Orcha.

Orcha assesses mHealth apps’ data use policies and compliance with relevant standards. It rates the app out of a maximum score of 100, with a lower score indicating that there may be issues that the user should investigate before using the app. Clinical assurance and user experience are also rated to help users and clinicians compare mHealth apps.

The Irish eHealth app library to date lists over 700 mHealth apps. The HSE points out that the library is a tool for users to identify and compare apps themselves but it is not intended to promote or recommend any particular app.

Other developments

Other recent developments in the mHealth sector include:

• A WhatsApp style messaging app developed by junior doctors that the developers claim could save the NHS £44m a year. The app helps NHS workers exchange patient information, make clinical decisions, manages their workload in a legally compliant forum and removes the need for pagers. Currently more than 100 NHS hospitals and care commissioning groups in the UK are using the app.
• An app that monitors children’s temperature. It uses a patch to wirelessly monitor the baby’s temperature and sends alerts to smartphones. Unlike a typical thermometer, children do not have to be woken from their sleep to obtain temperature readings.
• Tablets with micro ingestible sensors embedded in the pills that can alert smartphones when the pills touch the stomach lining of patients. The developers believe this could be useful for the treatment of mental illnesses if medication compliance is proving difficult. It could also be an invaluable tool for pharmaceutical companies or medical institutions to record timings of ingestion of medications during clinical trials.
• A device and accompanying app that takes ECG recordings via electrodes. The AI system of the software performs an automatic analysis and informs the patient of their heart rhythm. This data can then be sent directly to the patient’s clinician for further analysis and consultation. The product has already launched in the UK.
• A skin mapping app that incorporates AI technology. The app is designed to detect new moles or marks on the skin. These are one of the most common warning signs of melanoma and early detection can improve the success rate of treatment.
• Adia Health provides at-home finger prick fertility blood tests, a preconception plan to help improve fertility health and access to fertility specialists remotely.

At a broader level, technologies like blockchain, the Internet of Things and AI / augmented reality are taking mHealth to the next level.

Despite this, the technological advancement and wider adoption of mHealth apps brings important legal responsibilities. From a medical standpoint, mHealth apps can be very useful, but they can never replace the advice of someone’s own clinician.

Regulatory considerations

Depending on their functionality, some mobile apps and standalone software may fall within the definition of a ‘software medical device’. Any mHealth app deemed to be a software medical device will be subject to onerous obligations regarding safety, compliance and post market surveillance.

You can read more about the compliance and liability aspects of mHealth apps and upcoming changes to the law in our recent articles: ‘When is a Health and Fitness App not just an App? and Diagnosis on Demand: Potential of Healthcare Apps.

Health data and data protection

Earlier this year, the British Medical Journal warned that popular mHealth apps may not be keeping personal data about medical conditions confidential and users may not be aware of how the data they provide on these apps is being shared.

In Ireland, mHealth apps must comply with laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Irish Data Protection Acts 1988 – 2018. The Data Protection Acts transpose into Irish law the EU’s Law Enforcement Directive and adopt specific rules to regulate the processing of personal data for the purposes of health research.

At a basic level, mHealth apps that process personal data revealing information about an individual’s health will attract more stringent data protection obligations as this data is ‘special category data’ under data protection law. Processing any special category data is only allowed in the limited circumstances set out in Article 9 of the GDPR.

As the vast majority of mHealth apps are designed to operate online they are vulnerable to cyber-security threats. The GDPR make it essential for a data controller to adopt robust security practices for personal data, which may include pseudonymising or encrypting it.

Code of Conduct on privacy for mHealth apps

The Code of Conduct on privacy for mHealth apps aims to regulate and secure the personal data gathered by mHealth apps and promote trust among users. The Code has not yet been approved and the European Commission is working with industry stakeholders to encourage the further development of the current draft Code.

What the future holds

There have been many new developments in 2019 in the mHealth app sector. It is reassuring that governments are encouraging more widespread adoption of digital healthcare solutions by healthcare

practitioners and individuals. However, if mHealth apps are to truly flourish, individuals must trust the mHealth industry and how it is regulated.

Many mHealth apps have access to vast amounts of sensitive health information. There are important data protection implications if special category data relating to individual’s health is collected and processed. Given the increased privacy and security risks, tech companies and app developers must be aware of the data protection laws and ensure they are complying with them. From a transparency perspective, they should also ensure users are aware of how the data they provide on mHealth apps is being shared.

From a regulatory point of view, it would be prudent for tech companies and app developers to determine if an app is a software medical device. If so, they should ensure they are meeting their obligations regarding safety, compliance and post market surveillance and keep up to date with regulatory changes due to take effect next year.

We also hope 2020 brings progress in finalising the draft Code of Conduct on privacy for mHealth apps that will set out practical guidance for app developers on data protection principles when developing mHealth apps.

Source: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3f0c2427-242b-4299-81d9-bff80740161c