Smartphone Apps Meet Evidence-Based Medicine: The Future of Medicine May (Or May Not) Be in Your Smartphone

In this paper, the authors defined ATCS broadly as “a technology platform through which health professionals can collect relevant information or deliver decision support, goal setting, coaching, reminders, or health-related knowledge to consumers via smartphones, tablets, landlines,or mobile phones, using either telephones' touch-tone keypad or voice recognition software.” (A related rubric is mHealth, which the World Health Organization defines as “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices.”) Thus, ATCS encompass a range of services, from simple telephone reminders of appointments to two-way communication between patients and providers that may include transmission of patient data to healthcare professionals. The review covered studies published between 1980 (when, presumably, some patients were still using rotary dial phones) through June 2015. However, a large fraction (perhaps most) of the papers examined in the Cochrane Review study involved the use of smartphones and can be considered forms of mHealth.