Evaluation and acreditation of mobile health applications

Abstract

Mobile applications related to health have increased their presence in the market and their use, increasingly frequent, is part of the daily life of a large majority of citizens. Mobile technology can be an important innovation in medical care, since it can help the patient to have more active control of their disease, because it promotes self-care and empowerment. However, the use of this type of technological tools is still slow and limited.

In this situation, questions arise regarding the quality, reliability and clinical utility of mobile applications and a factor that contributes to this uncertainty is related to the lack of evaluation and accreditation of them. This paper analyzed the most outstanding initiatives for the evaluation and accreditation of mobile applications at the national and international level, as well as the most widely used scales to evaluate this type of technology.