Developers: Get Your Medical Mobile App Verified By IEEE

Patients who use mobile applications to manage medical conditions including depression and chronic pain might assume the apps have been evaluated by regulatory agencies to be safe and effective. But that isn’t necessarily the case.Most of the more than 55,000 medical apps that claim to diagnose or treat a condition—or ones that provide clinical decision support, known as “therapeutic” apps—have never been assessed by any trusted neutral bodies or regulatory agencies to evaluate them for technical soundness, ethical design, or clinical benefit. The apps often don’t comply with regional data security and privacy laws to protect people’s sensitive health information.Medical apps differ from traditional wellness apps, which provide users with insights into becoming healthier by, for example, tracking fitness activities, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing sleep patterns.There is no reliable way to verify that therapeutic apps deliver the results they indicate. To help e