Recently I wrote an article on how Apple is screening medical and health apps more closely in their updated App Store Review guidelines. In my article I mentioned the key medical and health apps that might get regulated and scrutinized more. I wanted to focus on one particular guideline Apple has in place and how I would like Apple to expand on it.
Medical apps that could provide inaccurate data or information, or that could be used for diagnosing or treating patients may be reviewed with greater scrutiny.
After having reviewed thousands of medical and health apps on iMedicalApps, one of the main things I would love to see developers do is put references to the medical content they provide.
If Apple simply asked developers of medical and health apps to list and source their content it would be a huge game changer.
By no means do I expect Apple to actually check to make sure those references are legitimate (would be too labor intensive), but at least it would empower the individual patient or physician to make their own judgement.
Further, it would force developers to disclose the source of the medical content they are providing. If developers don’t want to spend the time to provide the source for medical or health related content, then it’s probably not a good idea to expose other individuals to that content.
Again, I don’t expect Apple to make the App Store into a peer review process that is employed by medical journals — but this simple guideline change could make the medical and health App Stores significantly more “legit”.
