Abstract

Mobile health applications in rheumatology: Could they improve our care and research?

Author(s): Maurits MP, Yuminaga H, Huizinga TWJ & Knevel R

With>165,000 mobile health apps available on iTunes and Google Play mHealth is a rapidly growing field, which generated high expectations for the improvement of our health care. We identify two uses for mHealth in the field of rheumatology: A) aiding patient care and B) the systematic collection of data for scientific research. Currently, there is still a lack of evidence that mHealth will live up to the high promises. In this review we discuss the pros and cons of mHealth and the research that is needed to develop and validate mHealth to ensure high quality apps.