mHealth and Apps for citizens, patients and doctors: promises, caveats, and challenges

We live in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and at a time when there are more mobile connections than the entire human population. The “Health & Wellness” app market has surpassed 150,000 apps, available to anyone with a smartphone, often for free. These apps can support and manage medical conditions, monitor lifestyles, and may even provide medical advice. Moreover, many of these apps may collect and transmit personal health information. Yet, despite concerns regarding mHealth (mobile Health) app quality and confidentiality and privacy of health information, they have the potential of collecting a huge amount of data able to support disease prevention or early diagnosis, effectively monitor chronic patients, and promote healthy habits and lifestyles. To do so, data needs to be integrated with clinical hospital information systems (HISs) and electronic health records (EHRs), and should be appropriately analyzed to provide relevant information that can be used in decision-making. In this chapter, we will point out the major expected benefits from mHealth apps adoption and use, and the major critical points, as well as the challenges to be addressed to integrate mHealth apps and EHRs.