Apps review – Healthily Smart Symptom Checker

Apps review - Healthily Smart Symptom Checker

As more apps and decision-making support tools are being developed to help people manage their own health and care, professionals and patients need a way of knowing if they are safe and effective to use.

Healthily (Your.MD) developed a digital health technology suite of products to act as a personal health assistant app and commissioned the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) to undertake a review of the Healthily (Your.MD) Quality Management System (QMS), with an emphasis on clinical safety.

The consultation process

We consulted on this project through a range of surveys, interviews and meetings with the developers to ensure that we gained detailed insight into the app and its operation. We brought together a team of clinicians and professionals with deep knowledge of app development to carry out the review. The market for health and wellbeing apps is growing rapidly and there is a need for systematic reviews of their clinical quality and safety. This review provides a good model for undertaking more of this work in future.

Publication

PRSB has published a review report documenting the findings and recommendations.

To find out more about this project and more about our accreditation work, please contact info@theprsb.org

“If someone’s been working for a period of time, in a form of therapy, for instance, where there’s an agreed plan for the locality when they may present in an emergency situation … then it’s really important for us to be able to see that that information and be able to act appropriately according to that because, you know, there isn’t and there shouldn’t be a stock response to that. These plans are designed to be individualised and personalised.  All services should be giving that personalised approach to care wherever possible. And a standard such as [PCSP standard] definitely moves us closer towards being able to do that. [Not acting on agreed plans] is a key finding in terms of emergency responses over the years where responses have been inappropriate.” – Mental Health Nurse

“Following a particular plan that’s been put into place will result in much better outcomes and prevent the sort of poor outcome which would otherwise be leading to an unplanned hospital admission.” – General Practitioner