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Health care IT performance specialist IMS Health announced the availability of AppScript, a mobile health (mHealth) application designed to help health-care providers and health plans create proprietary formularies based on an objective assessment of health-care app functionality and value.
The AppScript Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution classifies and evaluates more than 40,000 mobile health-care apps currently available for download on iOS and Android platforms, categorized by stage of the patient journey.
“Today, there is growing recognition of mobile health’s potential to transform health care–to advance doctor/patient engagement and empower consumers to better monitor and manage their own health,” Stefan Linn, senior vice president of strategy and global pharma solutions at IMS Health, said in a statement. “That potential can only be realized through a systematic evaluation of the clinical benefits of health-care apps, clear professional guidelines around their use and effective integration of apps with other aspects of patient care.”
Each app is assessed using the company’s proprietary IMS Health AppScore, which ranks apps based on functionality, peer and patient reviews, certifications and their potential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care.
In addition, AppScript enables physicians to securely prescribe, reconcile and track app use by patients from any mobile interface, and as part of wellness, prevention and treatment regimens, they can organize these apps into formularies based on their specific patient population and practice preferences.
The company also announced the launch of AppNucleus, its customizable, cloud-based hosting platform that is designed to enable developers to build secure, industry-compliant health care apps at low cost.
AppNucleus features a suite of plug-and-play solutions, enabling patients and physicians to exchange health information on mobile devices through a secure, encrypted channel to protect patient information.
In addition, the platform, which is compatible with all mobile operating systems, integrates IMS Health information and analytics at every stage of app development to support design and performance evaluation decisions.
“With these game-changing solutions, IMS Health is establishing an intelligent, secure infrastructure for mobile health, backed by our market-leading real-world evidence capabilities and the most advanced technology platform in health care,” Linn continued.
The company recently acquired Pygargus, a life sciences advisory and analytics firm based in Sweden, to further advance its technology-enabled Real-World Evidence solutions and global RWE footprint.
The acquisition brings together IMS Health’s RWE capabilities with Pygargus’s proprietary technology for extracting and integrating patient-anonymous information from sources that include electronic medical records, health registries and claims databases.
The combination extends IMS Health’s suite of global RWE solutions, which are designed to help health care stakeholders more efficiently link and analyze complex data sets for a complete picture of the patient experience.