The European Commission is looking to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of health app data; it has formed a working group that will have its first meeting in March.

The initiative, according to the European Commission explained, is a follow up to a consultation announced in April 2014 that asked digital health companies and others for help in identifying ways to encourage and regulate mHealth. Results from the consultation found that users have privacy and security concerns, and that they have trouble identifying which of the thousands of available mHealth apps are reliable and produce good quality data.

“In order to fully benefit from the mobile health apps that people increasingly use to monitor their lifestyle and health status or to manage their chronic disease, it should be possible in the future to link data from these apps to the electronic health records,” the European Commission wrote. “This means that patients would be able to give access to their health professionals to consult the data collected by the apps.”

The working group will develop guidelines, expected to be published at the end of the year, that help different groups such as consumers, EHR vendors, and developers, assess the quality of health app data. Members of the working group include associations, research institutes, NGOs, and corporations. Digital Health & Care Alliance, Eucomed, King’s College London, The European Institute for Health Records (EuroRec), and Medappcare are among the group’s more notable members.

[Via: mobihealthnews]