Today, we take a look at some of the best health apps for paediatrics. Dr Tamsin Holland Brown, Community Paediatrician CCS NHS Trust, demonstrates and shares her personal views of how these apps can benefit children’s health and wellbeing.

Of the 259 child health apps we’ve reviewed, 71% score below ORCHA’s quality threshold. It is, therefore, particularly important to understand which apps are quality assured for use within clinical pathways.

The NHS Long Term Plan prioritises ensuring a strong start in life for children and young people.¹ Technology has a big role to play in this.

Hear Glue Ear demonstration:

In the video below, hear Dr Tamsin Brown, Community Paediatrician CCS NHS Trust, discuss how the Hear Glue Ear app can help children aged 2-6 who experience hearing loss due to glue ear. Dr Brown’s daughter, Lilac, also explains how the app works, looking at how games are used to develop auditory processing and listening skills through bone-conducting headphones.

Click below to watch the video:

Click here to read ORCHA’s review of Hear Glue Ear on our App Library.

Rafi Tone demonstration: 

Dr Brown next demonstrates the Rafi Tone app and accompanying Able Spacer and whistle mask (manufactured by Clement Clarke International Ltd). The app is designed to help make using an inhaler with a spacer easier and more fun for young children with wheeze or asthma symptoms, with a whistle tone emitted by the mask when correct breathing technique is used:

Click here to view ORCHA’s review of Rafi Tone on our App Library.

The Worrinots app demonstration: 

Dr Brown explains how The Worrinots app helps children to offload their worries, and how the companion app, Wotnot, allows parents to monitor their child’s concerns. The Worrinots is a secure app designed for children, providing them with a safe place to share their worries, fears and concerns, which in turn provides them with a practical, fun coping mechanism for their fears, using one of the four Worrinots characters:

Click here to access ORCHA’s review of The Worrinots, and here to read our review of the accompanying Wotnot app, on our App Library.

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Sources

1) National Health Executive: NICE recommendations to improve the lives of children, young people

ORCHA is a world leading expert in Digital Health. Its unique intelligent platform, designed with clinicians and IT experts to be a rapid first level of assessment, evaluates health apps against 260 criteria, with each measure responsive, personalised to the app, yet can be completed in 3 days.  This baseline review informs and directs deep app investigations conducted by Enhanced Review Components (ERC’s). Together, they are at the heart of national health app libraries around the world, including MIND’s app library of mental health apps, in the Netherlands. ORCHA regularly reviews its assessment criteria with experts and has now asked NeLL to scientifically validate the ORCHA Baseline Review (OBR).

To test the platform a scientific research team from NeLL will conduct an in-depth analysis of the OBR and will deliver a report with the findings and suggestions for possible optimization of assessment criteria or process.

As part of this research, NeLL will also include the end-users of eHealth apps to investigate what they want, need and expect of an app-assessment.

Commenting on the move, Niels Chavannes, professor eHealth, Leiden University Medical Center and Founder, NeLL, said: “We are honoured that we have been asked to carry out this assignment for ORCHA. We also think it is brave of them to dare to let NeLL conduct a very thorough, highly critical scientific investigation that could entail a lot of criticism on a process which is the heart of their organization.”

Tim Andrews, COO, ORCHA, adds: “NeLL is the best possible research party one could request to have a critical look at anything that has to do with eHealth and testing of digital tools. They are at the forefront in the field of development of innovative scientific research methods.”

Since 2019 ORCHA and NeLL have been working together on a regular basis. So far, experts of both parties have worked together on specific topics such as writing international applications and in the international CEN/ISO project group that cooperates to establish a European quality standard for health & wellness apps.

In addition to the scientific validation of the OBR, the organisations are planning to bring together their expertise to provide guidance on the digitalisation of care pathways, advising what eHealth tool should be used at which point in the healthcare process and for whom, extending to prescribing apps in practice.

Do you want to know more about this cooperation or about NeLL and/or ORCHA in general? Feel free to contact Cherelle de Graaf, she can be contacted via +31 (0)6-11 03 02 49 or cherelle@nell.eu

More young people have been experiencing mental health challenges during lockdown, those receiving NHS treatment before the crisis are receiving reduced or no support at all, and providing remote pastoral care and PSHE is difficult.

Now, as staff plan for the return to school, whilst continuing remote learning too, an increasing number of schools are using digital health as a proactive measure to support their students’ mental and physical health.

Whether as remote pastoral care, part of the return to school process, or general self care for teachers as well as students during school closure, your Digital Healthy Schools App Library is a safe, quick and effective resource to support your students and staff struggling with mental or physical health challenges.

Here, we look at the top five health issues pupils are most searching for help with, and highlight a top-scoring app that can help in each of these areas.

Take steps now to encourage your students to use your App Library and access apps to help their specific needs.

Top five health app searches

Almost one hundred schools across the UK have now activated their Digital Healthy Schools account. These App Libraries can be used to provide remote access to quality assured apps so that students and their families can learn about and manage their mental and physical health.

Over the past three months, the top five most searched for health topics across the Digital Healthy Schools App Libraries have been: sleep, stress, stopping smoking, healthy living, and anxiety.

This search data indicates that looking after students’ mental health and helping them stay healthy has never been more important.

Below, we suggest a top-scoring app for each of these five health issues:

• Sleep: Ambio Sleep Sounds* allows the user to create an atmosphere to aid the sleeping patterns of both themselves and others. Users can create atmospheres and mixes to fit with their individual needs, using either sounds created for Ambio, or sounds from the user’s own device.
• Stress: Chill Panda is a family friendly relaxation, breathing exercise and activity app. It allows children and adults to start to understand how their bodies respond to different feelings, and includes some play based activities demonstrated by a panda avatar.
• Stopping Smoking: My QuitBuddy provides helpful tips and distractions to overcome cravings, tracking systems to chart progress, and facts needed for understanding the impact smoking has on health, helping people to get, and stay, smoke free.
• Healthy Living: Sidekick Health is a social health game designed to motivate and engage people towards a healthy lifestyle. The app allows users to engage in health-improving tasks in various categories such as nutrition, physical activity and mental exercises.
• Anxiety: Wysa* is an emotionally intelligent chatbot which employs research-backed, widely used techniques such as CBT, DBT, Yoga and meditation, to support users with stress, anxiety, sleep, loss and a whole range of other mental health and wellness needs.

To search for, recommend or download these apps and many more, please go to your local DHS App Library.

*may include in-app purchases

Over the past three months, there has been an explosion in digital health adoption as people look for remote ways to manage their health and wellbeing. National Government COVID-19 strategies, local authorities and consumers, have all turned to health apps, both as a potential means of slowing the spread of the virus, and a method of allowing people to self-manage their own health.

Our App Libraries are used by services serving a population of 20 million, thereby acting as a barometer for how the UK is engaging with digital health.

This week, we share our data insights from the first quarter on since COVID-19 came to the UK.¹ How fast have digital health adoption rates escalated? What are the most popular searches? And which health and care apps have been downloaded the most?

Most popular app searches and downloads

More consumers have been using health and care apps. In just one week, we saw an increase of 182.5% in app downloads from our App Libraries, and a 6,500% increase in app recommendations from health and care professionals. But what condition areas are people searching for on app libraries?

We can see from the data across our App Libraries that the most popular search terms over the past quarter, in addition to ‘COVID’, have included: mental health, physiotherapy, MSK, fitness, anxiety, activity, neurology, rehabilitation, diabetes, respiratory, and sleep.

Whereas ‘COVID’ was initially the most searched term at the beginning of the outbreak, people are now searching for specific condition areas. This indicates a shift in focus to actively self-managing health and wellbeing, as well as a desire for knowledge about particular health areas.

Our word cloud below provides a visualisation of the most popular searches over the past three months:

The below list gives an insight into the top five most downloaded apps across our App Libraries over the past three months:

• Wysa is an emotionally intelligent chatbot which employs research-backed, widely used techniques such as CBT, DBT, yoga and meditation, to support users with stress, anxiety, sleep, loss and a whole range of other mental health and wellness needs.
• my mhealth is the leading supplier of self-management and rehabilitation apps and platforms in the UK for patients with COPD, Asthma, Diabetes and Heart Disease. These patient apps interact with a condition specific clinical interface, enabling efficient, population level remote models of care.
• Musculoskeletal (MSK) Self-Care offers support and guidance on how to manage a Musculoskeletal (MSK) condition or injury. This can relate to any injury, disease or problem with muscles, bones or joints. The app’s clinical guidance and exercise videos can be of benefit to anyone with an MSK condition/injury.
• Sidekick is a social health game designed to motivate and engage people towards a healthy lifestyle. The app allows people to communicate and collaborate with friends and colleagues in various categories such as nutrition, physical activity and mental exercises.
• GPEP Physiotherapy Exercises has been designed with the help of NHS GPs and physiotherapists with the aim of bringing users access to self-help advice from professionals, enabling users with back, muscle and joint conditions to start their recovery early.

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References:

1) British Foreign Policy Group: COVID-19 Timeline