The American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and the Orcha organisation for the review of care and health applications have announced a US framework for assessing digital health technologies.

This inclues mobile apps and web-based tools used by healthcare professionals and consumers. ACP also announced the launch of a pilot test of a database of digital health tools reviewed against the framework by Orcha.

The Digital Health Assessment Framework is intended to be an open framework, accessible for anyone to use, to support the adoption of high-quality digital health technologies and help healthcare professionals and patients make better-informed decisions about which digital health tools best suit their needs. The framework includes components to assess privacy and security, clinical assurance and safety, and usability, and was crafted to support US-specific guidelines, regulations and best practices for digital health technologies.

“ACP’s collaboration on this project is an important step forward in identifying and creating digital health tools that are valuable and safe for our members and patients,” said Ryan Mire, ACP president. “Leveraging the clinical expertise of ACP members, the technology expertise of the ATA members, and Orcha’s experience in assessing apps to create libraries of high-quality apps, this pilot test has the potential to address the needs of many stakeholders.”

Mire said he looked forward to achieving a joint goal through the pilot test to determine how the library can be useful to physicians in recommending high-value digital health tools to their patients, and what other barriers to wider adoption of digital health tools may exist.

Ann Mond Johnson, CEO of the ATA, said digital health technologies could offer safe, effective and engaging access to personalised health and support, and provide more convenient care, improve patient and provider satisfaction, and achieve better clinical outcomes.

“There are literally hundreds of health apps and devices for patients and clinicians to choose from, and our goal is to provide confidence that the health and wellness tools reviewed in this framework meet quality, privacy and clinical assurance criteria in the USA,” she said. “The ATA is pleased to be collaborating with ATA members, healthcare stakeholders, the ACP and Orcha, a trusted partner for healthcare systems and technology companies, to develop foundational criteria for assessing digital health technologies in the USA.”

Recognising the need to provide guidance for internal medicine physicians and their patients in choosing high-quality digital health tools, ACP is launching a pilot test of a library of health apps reviewed against the framework. Implementing a framework such as this requires efficiently reviewing a large number of digital health tools against it, so as to create diverse libraries of acceptable health apps.

Feedback from the ACP pilot, as well as input from digital health technology companies, healthcare professionals, consumers and other stakeholders will continue to help improve the framework, which will be updated regularly to reflect changes in clinical practice, the latest guidelines and best practices.

Orcha is a software platform for delivering safe digital health. Healthcare providers, professionals and digital health developers in twelve countries use the platform to deliver digital health safely. Its product range is built around a closed loop system, delivering the core infrastructure needed to introduce digital health safely, and the governance to manage risk. Products include assessment, digital health libraries, formularies, prescription tools and training. It has completed over 17,000 assessments on 7000 apps. It assesses a product against security, privacy, accessibility and clinical assurance criteria, in a repeatable process.