Apple introduce stricter entry requirements for health apps

pharmafile | September 8, 2016 | News story | Medical Communications, Research and Development Apple, Guidelines, apps, iphone, strict 

Apple has toughened its stance on health and medical apps that can be bought and downloaded on the iOS App Store, which will make it more difficult for companies to market apps claiming to calculate measures such as drug doses and measure blood pressure.

Applications that now calculate correct dosage, for example, must come from a pharmaceutical company, hospital, university, health insurer or have US FDA approval.

The guidelines state that apps that: “Medical apps that could provide inaccurate data or information, or that could be used for diagnosing or treating patients may be reviewed with greater scrutiny.” Similarly, apps “should not encourage illegal of excessive consumption of drugs or alcohol.”

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Trying to stem the tide at this stage may come a bit too late, as there already thousands of health apps on the market whose worth is sometimes hard to judge correctly. This should, however, prevent potentially unsafe apps making their way onto the store in future. In the past, risky apps such as Instant Blood Pressure have appeared on the store.

There has been considerable interest in the potential of phone apps to transform aspects of healthcare. In June, the NHS announced that it start to offer devices and apps for free to help patients manage their health while the first Apple ResearchKit app launched in the UK last year.

Sean Murray

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