Take a look at eGP Learning’s video on how to prescribe health apps safely using ORCHA. eGP Learning provides a range of services to help with technology-enhanced primary care and learning.

Describing ORCHA as ‘the BNF of applications’, eGP Learning’s YouTube video provides a walk-through of ORCHA’s App Finder and discusses how this can be used by health professionals in order to recommend the best apps for patients.

Hussain ‘DrGandalf’ Gandhi, founder of eGP Learning, demonstrates his use of ORCHA’s app prescription service, including the ease with which he is able to search for and subsequently recommend suitable apps for his patients’ individual health needs.

It is great to see that clinicians and patients are benefitting from our extensive App Library which aims to make digital health accessible to all. ORCHA helps to increase mHealth adoption in healthcare delivery by providing healthcare professionals with the necessary tools to incorporate excellent digital health into everyday practice.

Watch Dr Gandhi’s review of prescribing apps using ORCHA below:

Despite recent policy recommendations advocating the use of health apps in routine clinical practice, they are rarely recommended to patients by healthcare professionals in practice.

To find out why, ORCHA conducted its first study of healthcare professionals’ views regarding digital health.

Conducting in-depth interviews followed by a quantitative survey with healthcare professionals, ORCHA discovered what is most important, of some importance and of limited influence to healthcare professionals when considering recommending a health app to patients.

We are absolutely delighted that this research has been published in The Lancet Digital Health. Our study into the role of healthcare providers in mHealth adoption aligns with ORCHA’s role as an industry leader in ensuring that digital health is accessible and able to be trusted by healthcare providers.

The results of our study suggest that healthcare providers were most concerned about digital health technologies having a stamp of approval from either the MHRA, NHS, or another accrediting body. The second most significant factor for healthcare professionals when considering recommending health apps to patients was that there are published studies to demonstrate their safety or effectiveness.

Based on this evidence, ORCHA’s study suggests that the clinical assurance, safety and effectiveness of health apps are some of the most significant concerns for healthcare providers with regards to recommending digital health technologies to patients.

In this sense, ORCHA’s work becomes even more important, as we provide digital health solutions to address the concerns of healthcare providers. ORCHA’s mission to improve digital health outcomes by facilitating trust in health apps is achieved through our robust, 160-point App Review process, which scores apps based on their Data Privacy, Clinical Assurance and User Experience.

To examine the full statistics of ORCHA’s study and to further understand how digital health organisations such as ORCHA have a substantial role in increasing mHealth adoption, please read the full article, published in The Lancet Digital Health: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(19)30025-1/fulltext

If you are a healthcare professional, we’d love for you to participate in the next stage of our research about the most important factors for healthcare providers when considering offering digital health technologies to patients. Simply fill in this survey before 7th June – it only takes five minutes!

Our team of experts continually monitor, assess and ask questions, so they can give consumers, professionals and health and care bodies across the world accurate, impartial and up to date advice on finding the best apps. Here we highlight the most significant market developments and news from over the past month:

– Despite recent policy recommendations advocating the use of health apps in routine clinical practice, they’re still rarely recommended by health-care providers in practice. So ORCHA conducted the first study to understand why and explore the factors most important amongst healthcare professionals. The Lancet Digital Health published our initial findings here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(19)30025-1/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR2tVBBEg2ciWESThqbDthhnAUyzFDlh8makq1xRuYY0-wmCW8OVtdmpFv8

– The use of innovative technologies, such as apps and wearables, can help ‘patient power’ by giving patients control over monitoring their health conditions. This parallels ORCHA’s mission to increase access to and trust in digital health apps, so as to improve patient care: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48228818

– Digital Health reports on how ORCHA’s recent collaboration with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has helped the Trust’s mental health therapists to understand which apps are the safest and most clinically effective for patients: https://www.digitalhealth.net/2019/05/mobile-health-apps-news-brief-2/

– Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are contributing to the rise in Consumer-driven Healthcare (CDH): https://hitconsultant.net/2019/05/28/4-areas-in-consumer-driven-healthcare-ripe-for-innovation/#.XO0P54hKhPY

Men are less likely to access psychological therapies than women yet 3 out of 4 suicides are by men. Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust understands the impact living with a condition or receiving treatment can have on a person’s emotions. It provides specialist clinical health psychologist services as part of its condition-specific teams.

To advance how this support is delivered before, during and after discharge, the Trust has adopted the use of safe and tested apps. Hear Dr Jessica Dean, Renal Clinical Psychologist, explain the dangers of using untested health apps in mental health: