Beth Gildersleve NHS Digital 6 October 2016 Digital Health and Cara Alliance

1. UK mHealth app assessment
Digital Health and Care Alliance
Beth Gildersleve
06 October 2016

2. Agenda
• Introduce the health apps assessment & uptake
(including wearables) programme - current thinking
and progress to date
• Discuss the key challenges and opportunities of the
work
• Gather more feedback
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3. Health apps assessment & uptake (including
wearables) programme
Domain A – Self Care and Prevention
• We will harness the power of digital information and technology to
improve national well-being, empowering patients with the tools they
need to take control of their own health, reducing pressure on
frontline services and Improving national well-being.
Programme
• Develop an apps assessment framework to identify apps that have
the potential to make a difference in delivering positive citizen and
patient outcomes.
• This will help commissioners make more effective decisions about
apps which health and care systems to fund locally; provide
guidance and direction to digital health application developers and
provide health and care professionals with more confidence in
recommending apps to patients.
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4. Programme Objectives
1.Create an ecosystem to allow the developer market to innovate
and enable digital apps to access to national systems and
citizens/patients to upload personal data to their PHR
2.Surface and promote good health apps for citizen use on NHS
Choices (NHS.UK and other app stores) to aid citizens and
patients self-care and reduce the burden on the front line
3.Innovate and enable the developer market to produce high quality
apps, through the provision of clear guidance on developing ‘good’
health apps
4.Empower healthcare professionals to recommend apps and
wearables and to utilise and trust relevant patient generated data
5.Support commissioners in procurement decisions
6.Deliver a library of approved apps in areas like mental health and
chronic conditions by 31 March 2017
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5. Wider Paperless 2020 Links
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6. Rationale for apps assessment process
• Digital interventions encouraged by system – prevention
and self-care agenda
• The apps market is not working - wisdom of the crowd is
not an effective filter
• Professionals not ready to recommend
• Commissioners not confident to invest. Inconsistencies and
duplication of assessments
• Organisations making high quality apps need reason for
doing so
• No clear standards available
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7. Patient and citizen survey indicates NHS
‘endorsement’ can drive selection
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8. Value Proposition
• Accelerate the uptake and adoption of digital services across health
and care with the public, healthcare professionals and commissioners
• Support the developer market and local organisations to ensure high
quality, safe and usable digital services are developed as needed for the
health and care system
• Provide a common core infrastructure of shared systems, technology,
and processes to make it as easy as possible to build high quality, user-
centered, digital services
• Develop an apps assessment process
– Not a regulatory process but identify the ‘best’ apps
– Setting a quality benchmark
– Not all apps assessed in same way: proportionate use of resources
– Most comprehensive assessment likely for higher cost / high risk apps
– Output accessible and integrated – need for promotion and implementation
tools
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9. App Vendor, Self Assessment
Professional Validation
National App Placement/Promotion
Independent Evidence Evaluation
National Tariff ‘Digital Product’
• App vendor follows guidance material
• Undertake self assessment and agree T&Cs
• Meets scoring criteria for self assessment
• Professional community evaluate app vendor
submission
• Professional community reject or approve app
• Approved apps tagged with NHS Logo
• App available for download on NHS
platform library
• App available locally and nationally across
NHS estate
• Further independent evaluation on the
efficacy of an app
• Clinical safety reports, Reach: usage, access
• Impact (Effectiveness, Cost saving, Patient
factors)
• App recommended for national tariff/
prescribing
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InPilot
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TBDSummary of App Assessment Process

10. Next Steps
• Listening and continued engagement
• Encourage innovation
• Links with regulators
– Discussions with MHRA on-going
– Further discussions with CQC required
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11. www.digital.nhs.uk
@nhsdigital
enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk
0300 303 5678