It is predicted Australia will see a growing trend towards doctors actively ‘prescribing’ health apps to monitor complex health issues.
Advocates refer to it as the digitisation of health care with applications on smartphones, but experts say the technology will not replace the need for face-to-face doctor consultations.
There are more than 10,000 apps available to monitor heart rate and even sexually transmitted diseases.
Sometime in the future, biosensors applied to the body will be able to measure almost anything including blood pressure, glucose and oxygen concentration in the blood.
The data could then be sent wirelessly through smartphones to doctors, giving them a panoramic, high definition view of a patient that doctors can use to assess and manage a disease.
University of Western Sydney’s Dr Joanne Curry, who has developed award-winning health apps, says the volume of health-related apps is increasing.
“This is a very important and growing area for good proactive monitoring of one’s health,” Dr Curry said.
“If you can get the patient to actually monitor their condition more frequently while they’re at home you can capture things like their dizzy spells or their periods of inactivity.
“You can also then get them to do blood glucose monitoring and compare that against the actual clinical conditions that they’re exhibiting and so then you can start to say to them, ‘Well, you always have a dip at two o’clock in the afternoon. We suggest that at that time you might try and take it a bit easier, have something light to eat to keep your blood sugar levels at an appropriate level’.
“Of course you know if we can get our patient to be more aware of their own activities and their wellness we could alleviate a hospital admission. And hospital admissions are very expensive and that’s what clogs up our system.”
Doctor needed to interpret data from health apps: AMA
The Australian Medical Association’s Council of General Practice chairman, Dr Brian Morton, says the introduction of health apps is a good thing but the information needs to be monitored and interpreted.
“There’s some cautions that we must have with their introduction,” he said.
“You really need to have someone filter and interpret the information and make sure that the app is actually applicable either to your age group, perhaps your health needs and whether or not you can trust what it’s telling you.”
Dr Morton says apps would not be the solution for patients trying to avoid the Federal Government’s proposed $7 co-payment system.
“There is a real concern that the $7 co-payment proposed will stop people visiting their doctor … health applications in apps would be a bonus to the management, (but) it doesn’t replace that face-to-face contact with a GP. To avoid seeing a GP because you’ve got an app puts your health at great danger,” he said.
The spectre of diagnostic software presents new challenges for Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviews and approves apps for medical use.
A TGA spokesman says the body is aware apps could be developed to have a role in diagnosing illness by using software to analyse data.
He says if such devices were developed they could be classified as a therapeutic device and then be subject to the TGA’s regulatory oversight.
Dr Morton says the TGA’s approach allows for innovation.
“We don’t want to stifle innovation or stifle uses that a quite appropriate but we do need to know and make sure as a community that we’ve got some watchdog, an appropriate one, making sure the safety and applicability of it,” he said.
“So TGA needs to keep watching rather than regulating at the moment.”