DR JENNY HARRIES TO HEAD PANDEMIC UNIT
According to The Times [behind paywall], deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries is reportedly the preferred candidate for the chief executive of the recently announced UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Recommended by UK health secretary Matt Hancock, the appointment is yet to be approved by prime minister, Boris Johnson this month....
NHSX has launched a new process to help give staff, patients and the public confidence that the digital health tools they use meet NHS standards.
The digital technology assessment criteria (DTAC) is a rapid process that can be completed in days.
It will apply to all digital health technologies, from public facing health apps to systems used within hospitals such as electronic patient records....
A recent statement by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) claims the NHS COVID-19 app has alerted over 1.7 million users of potential exposure to the virus since its release in September.
This comes with the decision to start releasing regular data updates from the app from 18 February as part of the wider NHS Test and Trace data, which is already being reported weekly.
WHY IT...
A research report commissioned by digital transformation enabler, Mobiquity, and conducted by Censuswide, reveals that half of UK patients aged over 55 preferred digital tools instead of in-person consultations during COVID-19.
The report entitled, 'COVID-19: Ensuring a quality patient experience with the rise of digitisation in a healthcare setting' surveyed 301 GPs and 3,009 patients in the UK...
The latest report published by ORCHA (the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications) on digital health trends has found that there has a been a significant rise in digital health, with health app downloads up from four to five million every day.
The research provides 15 months of app search and downloadable data which began prior to lockdown measures.
WHY IT MATTERS
The report...
UK-based UX design and development agency, Sigma, has been selected by health app evaluation and advisor organisation, ORCHA, to improve usability and accessibility of their health apps.
ORCHA provides review, accreditation services, reports and advice to developers, detailing what can be done to better meet the needs of health and care providers, including connecting them with specialists in the...
An app by Swedish mental health startup Flow has become the highest scoring free depression treatment in the ORCHA app library, which evaluates and distributes health apps for governments and health and social care organisations worldwide.
The Flow app uses evidence-based psychology and neuroscience research to help patients understand, treat and prevent depression. It achieved a 72% rating at...
About the author: John Crawford is the founder and managing director of Crawford Works, and an independent consultant with experience in digital health. Until 2018, he was the Healthcare Industry Leader for Europe at IBM, and, from 2016 to 2018, a director of the Global Board of HIMSS, owner of MobiHealthNews. He is now an advisory consultant for HIMSS in Europe. The opinions in this piece are...
When it comes to health apps, concerns around data transparency and privacy or the lack of scientific evidence or peer-reviewed studies to back up their use have long plagued the digital health world. Only last week, period tracking platforms came under fire after a report from UK-based research group Privacy International found that some apps were sharing users’ personal information with...
There is a vast array of health apps that we can turn to nowadays, but how many of those are backed by evidence remains unclear. Only in March, a study published in Nature Digital Medicine found that only two out of 73 mental health apps provided evidence from a study associated with their use. And in June, a paper released in the same journal pointed to the lack of standardised measures for the...
_1.jpg?itok=BQPXUIL7 "The process aims to ensure tools meet NHS standards.")
_1.jpg?itok=gbvOnaMo "The report surveyed over 100 UK GPs and 1,000 patients who visited their doctor in COVID-19.")
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