Health Data Management

The Federal Communications Commission has finalized rules for the operation of Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs), which are designed to provide clinicians with more extensive real-time data permitting faster patient intervention.

The FCC claims it can minimize that risk by adopting rules that permit an MBAN device to operate only over relatively short distances and as part of a low power networked system, and by providing frequencies where an MBAN can co-exist with existing spectrum users and engage in “robust frequency re-use.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a draft “vetting guide” to aid in testing mobile applications to find security vulnerabilities in them.

The guide focuses on the tests that should most be considered when vetting a mobile app, as allowable functionalities on an app may be role-based with some employees having full access to functions while others are limited. NIST is accepting industry comment on the guide through Sept 18, 2014.

In the absence of research on the impact of mobile technologies on health outcomes, in particular, doctors are not convinced that consumers can change health behavior or improve disease management though their use of apps.

Due to this reluctance on the part of physicians to embrace mHealth, consumers are cutting out medical professionals as they pursue mobile technology in their own pursuit of improved health results -- creating a vicious circle.

A new study, which surveyed 1,000 consumers who use or plan to use health and fitness mobile apps, found that while 70 percent of respondents use apps on a daily basis to track calorie intake and monitor physical activities, just 40 percent actually share their data and insights with their doctors.

What's more, 34 percent of mobile health and fitness app users in the survey indicated that they would increase their use of apps if their physicians actively recommended them.