Enhancing the Value of the BfArM's DiGA Directory: Strategies for Improved Usability and Stakeholder Satisfaction.

Germany's Digital Healthcare Act allows doctors to prescribe digital health applications (DiGAs) for reimbursement. DiGAs must demonstrate safety, data security, and a "positive impact on care" to be listed in the official directory. Previously, data for permanently listed DiGAs was analyzed.

Digital health applications from a government-regulated directory of reimbursable health apps in Germany-a systematic review for evidence and bias.

Background: The Digital Healthcare Act, passed in November 2019, authorizes healthcare providers in Germany to prescribe digital health applications (DiGA) to patients covered by statutory health insurance. If DiGA meet specific efficacy requirements, they may be listed in a special directory maintained by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices. Due to the lack of well-founded app evaluation tools, the objectives were to assess (I) the evidence quality situation for DiGA in the literature and (II) how DiGA manufacturers deal with this issue, as reflected by the apps available in the aforementioned directory.

An Automated System to Distribute Students to Clerkships.

Participating in clerkships with general practitioners (GPs) is integral to studying medicine. The students gain deep and valuable insights into the everyday working practice of GPs. The central challenge is organizing these clerkships to distribute the students to the participating doctors' offices.

Do Health Apps Stigmatize People with Obesity?

Apps in the "Medicine" category of Apple's App Store were examined concerning the potential stigmatization of people with obesity through word and image language. Only 5/71 potentially stigmatizing apps related to obesity were identified. Stigmatization in this context can occur, for example, through the excessive promotion of very slim people in connection with weight loss-related apps.

Conciliation and Approval of Quality Principles for the Self-Declaration of the Quality of Health Apps.

This poster describes the conciliation and approval process of the unified set of criteria for self-declaration of health app quality. The timeline underlines the necessity of transparency and open communication in regulations.

COVID-19 Mobile Apps Trends Derived from Long-Term Google Play Analysis.

In this paper, we describe the 5-year trends of COVID-related mobile apps in the Google Play platform obtained by retrospectively analyzing app descriptions. Out of 21764 and 48750 unique apps available free of charge in the "medical" and "health and fitness", there were 161 and 143 COVID-related apps, respectively. The prominentrise in apps' prevalence occurred in January 2021.

Evaluation of a semiautomated App Store analysis for the identification of health apps for cardiac arrhythmias.

Background: Smartphone apps are increasingly utilised by patients and physicians for medical purposes. Thus, numerous applications are provided on the App Store platforms.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to establish a novel, expanded approach of a semiautomated retrospective App Store analysis (SARASA) to identify and characterise health apps in the context of cardiac arrhythmias.

Evidence of Digital Health Applications from a State-Regulated Repository for Reimbursable Health Applications in Germany.

17 RCTs for 15 digital health applications (DiGA) permanently listed in the state-regulated register were analyzed descriptively for methodological study aspects relevant to evidence analysis. The analysis revealed that several underlying studies had limitations, at least worthy of discussion, in terms of their power concerning sample size, intervention and control group specifications, drop-out rates, and blinding.

Medical Apps for Android and iOS: Differences and Similarities.

Google Play and Apple's App Store dominate the mobile health app market. We analyzed the metadata and descriptive texts of apps in the medical category using semi-automated retrospective app store analysis (SARASA) and compared the store offerings in terms of their number, descriptive texts, user ratings, medical device status, diseases, and conditions (both keyword-based). Relatively speaking, the store listings for the selected items were comparable.

Orthopaedic and trauma surgeons' prioritisation of app quality principles based on their demographic background.

Background: Although apps are becoming increasingly relevant in healthcare, there is limited knowledge about how healthcare professionals perceive "quality" in this context and how quality principles that can aid them in assessing health-related apps may be prioritised. The objective was to investigate physicians' views of predefined (general) quality principles for health apps and to determine whether a ranking algorithm applied to the acquired data can provide stable results against various demographic influences and may thus be appropriate for prioritisation.

Methods: Participants of an online survey of members of two German professional orthopaedics associations conducted between 02/12/2019 and 02/01/2020 were asked about their perception of a set of quality principles for health apps (i.

Exploring the weight bias of professionals working in the field of obesity with a mobile IAT: a pilot study.

Background: Obesity is common in many industrialized nations and often accompanied by related health issues. Furthermore, individuals living with overweight or obesity are often confronted with stigmatization in their daily lives. These problems may be aggravated if the objectivity of health care professionals is compromised due to (unconscious) prejudices.

Implementation of Mobile Psychological Testing on Smart Devices: Evaluation of a ResearchKit-Based Design Approach for the Implicit Association Test.

Objective: To determine whether a framework-based approach for mobile apps is appropriate for the implementation of psychological testing, and equivalent to established methods.

Methods: Apple's ResearchKit was used for implementing native implicit association test methods (IAT), and an exemplary app was developed to examine users' implicit attitudes toward overweight or thin individuals. For comparison, a web-based IAT app, based on code provided by Project Implicit, was used.

Prioritization of Quality Principles for Health Apps Using the Kano Model: Survey Study.

Background: Health apps are often used without adequately taking aspects related to their quality under consideration. This may partially be due to inadequate awareness about necessary criteria and how to prioritize them when evaluating an app.

Objective: The aim of this study was to introduce a method for prioritizing quality attributes in the mobile health context.

[Great potential, little substance : Overview of quality and quantity of urological apps in the German app store].

Background: The range of medical apps is broad and diverse. The previous evaluations are inconsistent and limited to the respective areas of application.

Objectives: The main objective of this work is to comprehensively present, organize, and evaluate the current range of urological apps with the help of a semi-automatic retrospective app store analysis (SARASA).

The Digital Healthcare Act - a Turning Point in the German Digitisation Strategy?

The recently ratified Digital Healthcare Act - DVG - has paved the way, among other issues, for the prescription of health apps. The German DVG creates an entitlement to health apps for the very first time. However, this entitlement is initially limited to low-risk medical devices that have been included in the publicly accessible Register for Digital Health Applications by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices.

Assessment of a Mobile App by Adolescents and Young Adults With Cystic Fibrosis: Pilot Evaluation.

Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF) continues to be the most common life-limiting chronic pulmonary disease in adolescents and young adults. Treatment of CF demands a high treatment time investment to slow the progression of lung function decline, the most important contributor to morbidity and mortality. Adherence is challenging in CF due to the high treatment burden and the lack of immediate health consequences in case of nonadherence.

Quality Awareness and Its Influence on the Evaluation of App Meta-Information by Physicians: Validation Study.

Background: Meta-information provided about health apps on app stores is often the only readily available source of quality-related information before installation.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess whether physicians deem a predefined set of quality principles as relevant for health apps; whether they are able to identify corresponding information in a given sample of app descriptions; and whether, and how, this facilitates their informed usage decisions.

Methods: All members of the German Society for Internal Medicine were invited by email to participate in an anonymous online survey over a 6-week period.

Quality Principles of App Description Texts and Their Significance in Deciding to Use Health Apps as Assessed by Medical Students: Survey Study.

Background: Currently, there are no binding requirements for manufacturers prescribing which information must be included in the app descriptions of health apps.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate how medical students perceive a selection of quality principles, intended for usage decisions in the app context, and establish whether the information presented in a sample of app descriptions is perceived as sufficient for facilitating an informed usage decision.

Methods: A total of 123 students (mean age 24.

Description of Cardiological Apps From the German App Store: Semiautomated Retrospective App Store Analysis.

Background: In the app stores of mobile platforms, consumers are confronted with an enormous number of mobile apps. Over the past few years, considerable research has been undertaken into to identifying, characterizing, and evaluating apps, be it in health-related or other contexts. However, many of these projects are restricted to specific areas of application and offer little flexibility in adapting the applied criteria.

Relevance of Trust Marks and CE Labels in German-Language Store Descriptions of Health Apps: Analysis.

Background: In addition to mandatory CE marking ("CE" representing Conformité Européenne, with the CE marking being a symbol of free marketability in the European Economic Area) for medical devices, there are various seals, initiatives, action groups, etc, in the health app context. However, whether manufacturers use them to distinguish their apps and attach relevance to them is unclear.

Objective: The objective was to take a snapshot of quality seals, regulatory marks, and other orientation aids available on the German app market and to determine whether manufacturers deem such labels relevant enough to apply them to their apps, namely as reflected by mentions in app description texts in a typical app store (ie, Apple's App Store).

[Assessing the benefits of digital health solutions in the societal reimbursement context].

For a number of reasons, achieving reimbursability for digital health products has so far proven difficult. Demonstrating the benefits of the technology is the main hurdle in this context. The generally accepted evaluation processes, especially parallel group comparisons in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for (clinical) benefit assessment, are primarily intended to deal with questions of (added) medical benefit.

Mobile Augmented Reality as a Feature for Self-Oriented, Blended Learning in Medicine: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Advantages of mobile Augmented Reality (mAR) application-based learning versus textbook-based learning were already shown in a previous study. However, it was unclear whether the augmented reality (AR) component was responsible for the success of the self-developed app or whether this was attributable to the novelty of using mobile technology for learning.

Objective: The study's aim was to test the hypothesis whether there is no difference in learning success between learners who employed the mobile AR component and those who learned without it to determine possible effects of mAR.

Expectancy, usage and acceptance by general practitioners and patients: exploratory results from a study in the German outpatient sector.

Objective: The study's objective was to assess factors contributing to the use of smart devices by general practitioners (GPs) and patients in the health domain, while specifically addressing the situation in Germany, and to determine whether, and if so, how both groups differ in their perceptions of these technologies.

Methods: GPs and patients of resident practices in the Hannover region, Germany, were surveyed between April and June 2014. A total of 412 GPs in this region were invited by email to participate via an electronic survey, with 50 GPs actually doing so (response rate 12.