Guidelines for Mobile Health Applications

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) is a fast-growing industry that facilitates the management of healthcare by both patients and healthcare providers (Zapata, et al, 2015). The growing popularity of this platform and general lack of regulatory oversight has led to wide variation in adherence to sound human factors and usability principles. Thus, a set of guiding criteria would help developers streamline their processes through standardization. As part of a project referred to as the Xcertia Guidelines, a workgroup of industry experts and stakeholders developed guidelines for incorporating usability principles into the development of mHealth applications. Using an iterative process, the workgroup conducting research to generate content covering 10 distinct topic areas for a draft publication released in February, 2019. After an open comment period, an updated version of the guidelines will be released to the public.