• BMC research notes · Aug 2014

    Medical applications: a database and characterization of apps in Apple iOS and Android platforms.

    • Heather J Seabrook, Julie N Stromer, Cole Shevkenek, Aleem Bharwani, Jill de Grood, and William A Ghali.
    • Ward of the 21st Century, GD01 TRW Building, 3280 Hospital Drive NW, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 4Z6, Canada. wghali@ucalgary.ca.
    • BMC Res Notes. 2014 Aug 27; 7: 573.

    BackgroundMedical applications (apps) for smart phones and tablet computers are growing in number and are commonly used in healthcare. In this context, there is a need for a diverse community of app users, medical researchers, and app developers to better understand the app landscape.MethodsIn mid-2012, we undertook an environmental scan and classification of the medical app landscape in the two dominant platforms by searching the medical category of the Apple iTunes and Google Play app download sites. We identified target audiences, functions, costs and content themes using app descriptions and captured these data in a database. We only included apps released or updated between October 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012, with a primary "medical" app store categorization, in English, that contained health or medical content. Our sample of Android apps was limited to the most popular apps in the medical category.ResultsOur final sample of Apple iOS (n = 4561) and Android (n = 293) apps illustrate a diverse medical app landscape. The proportion of Apple iOS apps for the public (35%) and for physicians (36%) is similar. Few Apple iOS apps specifically target nurses (3%). Within the Android apps, those targeting the public dominated in our sample (51%). The distribution of app functions is similar in both platforms with reference being the most common function. Most app functions and content themes vary considerably by target audience. Social media apps are more common for patients and the public, while conference apps target physicians.ConclusionsWe characterized existing medical apps and illustrated their diversity in terms of target audience, main functions, cost and healthcare topic. The resulting app database is a resource for app users, app developers and health informatics researchers.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…