Hacking Medicine Institute unveils app review program

RANKED Health

The non-profit organization Hacking Medicine Institute (HMI) announced RANKED Health, a program designed to “critically evaluate and rank health-focused applications and connected devices for better disease monitoring and management.” As such, RANKED aims to provide independent, unbiased and accurate information to help accelerate patient and provider adoption of clinically proven and well-designed digital health solutions. To that end, HMI assembled a team of experts from top-ranked teaching hospitals and universities to lead the effort.

The RANKED review process is modeled after academic journals and is designed to help both providers and consumers not only confidently choose new products and services for monitoring and managing specific conditions, but also shed light on unsafe or ineffective applications that pose serious threats to consumer health. The RANKED Health editorial framework for reviews and rankings of digital health products includes mobile apps with plans to expand to connected medical devices.

HMI’s initiative is certainly not the only one looking to review and rate digital health products and services, with the likes of Jiff and HealthTap as well as IMS Health competing in the same space. Some of these efforts, according to HMI, were hindered by trust, credibility and sustainability factors; and that’s why RANKED Health will make its review program an iterative and collaborative process.

The initial set of reviews have been completed, and reviewers are actively seeking feedback and input from industry experts and end-users.The initial set of reviews have been completed, and reviewers are actively seeking feedback and input from industry experts and end-users to ensure the program is aligned with market needs and sentiment.

RANKED Health will be led by Drs. Maulik Majmudar, a cardiologist and associate director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Adam Landman, an emergency medicine physician and chief medical information officer at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Also, in tandem with the review program, HMI is inviting leading clinical experts to join its efforts to publish research and reviews of the most effective and best-designed new medical technologies. In addition to clinicians, engaged patients and caregivers can contribute meaningful insights, and reviews from non-clinicians with expertise as power users are welcomed…