ESSENTIAL SECURITY PRACTICES FOR FORTIFYING MOBILE APPS

BackgroundThe terms health app and medical app are often used interchangeably but do not necessarily mean the same thing. To better understand these terms and better regulate such technologies, we need distinct definitions of health and medical apps.ObjectiveThis study aimed to provide an overview of the definitions of health and medical apps from an interdisciplinary perspective. We summarized the core elements of the identified definitions for their holistic understanding in the context of digital public health.MethodsThe legal frameworks for medical device regulation in the United States, the European Union, and Germany formed the basis of this study. We then searched 6 databases for articles defining health or medical apps from an interdisciplinary perspective. The narrative literature review was supported by a forward and backward snowball search for more original definitions of health and medical apps. A qualitative analysis was conducted on the identified relevant aspects and core elements of each definition. On the basis of these findings, we developed a holistic definition of health and medical apps and created a decision flowchart to highlight the differences between the 2 types.ResultsThe legal framework showed that medical apps could be regulated as mobile medical devices, whereas there is no legal term for health apps. Our narrative literature review identified 204 peer-reviewed publications that offered a definition of health and medical apps. After screening for original definitions and applying the snowball method, 11.8% (24/204) of the publications were included in the qualitative analysis. Of these 24 publications, 22 (88%) provided an original definition of health apps and 11 (44%) described medical apps. The literature suggests that medical apps are a part of health apps. To describe health or medical apps, most definitions used the user group, a description of health, the device, the legal regulation, collected data, or technological functions. However, the regulation should not be a distinction criterion as it requires legal knowledge, which is neither suitable nor practical. An app’s intended medical or health use enables a clear differentiation between health and medical apps. Ultimately, the health aim of an app and its main target group are the only distinction criteria.ConclusionsHealth apps are software programs on mobile devices that process health-related data on or for their users. They can be used by every health-conscious person to maintain, improve, or manage the health of an individual or the community. As an umbrella term, health apps include medical apps. Medical apps share the same technological functions and devices. Health professionals, patients, and family caregivers are the main user groups. Medical apps are intended for clinical and medical purposes and can be legally regulated as mobile medical devices.

The number of older adults using mobile devices has doubled over recent years; however, many need assistance in learning how to use their device. To address this gap, we developed patient education materials teaching older Veterans how to download apps and the basics of mobile device and app use. For example, we developed step-by-step guides for three Veteran Affairs mobile apps that target mental health symptoms. Material development involved feedback from providers and older Veterans using a multi-step mixed methods evaluation process. Local technology and geriatric content experts provided initial feedback; all experts agreed the materials would be helpful to teach Veterans about mental health apps. We subsequently interviewed older Veterans (M = 78.5 years) who evaluated the materials. Over 50% of Veterans found the guides clear, articulate, and useful; 83.3% noted they would recommend to others. Lastly, providers who see older Veterans regularly rated the materials; 79% of providers rated the materials as helpful, with an average rating of 4.3 (1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree). Providers viewed the materials and apps as useful supplements to psychotherapy and especially useful for individuals who are unable to return to clinic. Overall, both providers and Veterans found the materials easy to understand and valuable for those new using mobile apps or devices. Findings from the evaluation process suggest the design of the materials may be vital to increasing the use of mental health mobile apps among older Veterans.

BackgroundRheumatoid arthritis flares have a profound effect on patients, causing pain and disability. However, flares often occur between regularly scheduled health care provider visits and are, therefore, difficult to monitor and manage. We sought to develop a mobile phone app combined with a population management system to help track RA flares between visits.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to implement the mobile app plus the population management system to monitor rheumatoid arthritis disease activity between scheduled health care provider visits over a period of 6 months.MethodsThis is a randomized controlled trial that lasts for 6 months for each participant. We aim to recruit 190 patients, randomized 50:50 to the intervention group versus the control group. The intervention group will be assigned the mobile app and be prompted to answer daily questionnaires sent to their mobile devices. Both groups will be assigned a population manager, who will communicate with the participants via telephone at 6 weeks and 18 weeks. The population manager will also communicate with the participants in the intervention group if their responses indicate a sustained increase in rheumatoid arthritis disease activity. To assess patient satisfaction, the primary outcomes will be scores on the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication as well as the Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions questionnaire at 6 months. To determine the effect of the mobile app on rheumatoid arthritis disease activity, the primary outcome will be the Clinical Disease Activity Index at 6 months.ResultsThe trial started in November 2016, and an estimated 2.5 years will be necessary to complete the study. Study results are expected to be published by the end of 2019.ConclusionsThe completion of this study will provide important data regarding the following: (1) the assessment of validated outcome measures to assess rheumatoid arthritis disease activity with a mobile app between routinely scheduled health care provider visits, (2) patient engagement in monitoring their condition, and (3) communication between patients and health care providers through the population management system.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02822521, http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02822521 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6xed3kGPd)

Mobile apps are software programmes that run on smartphones and other mobile devices. Mobile health apps can help people manage their own health and wellness, promote healthy living and gain access to useful information when and where they need it. The Brush DJ oral health app was developed to use the opportunity mobile apps offer to motivate an evidence-based oral hygiene routine. A literature review has found no research investigating the use of a mobile app to motivate evidence-based oral hygiene behaviour. The objective of this preliminary investigation was to assess user perception of an oral health app to give a basis for future research and development of app technology in relation to oral health. A cross-sectional qualitative user perception questionnaire.RESULTS :One hundred and eighty-nine people responded to the questionnaire. Seventy percent (n = 113) of respondents reported that their teeth felt cleaner since using the app. Eighty-eight percent (n = 133) reported the app motivated them to brush their teeth for longer and 92.3% (n = 144) would recommend the app to their friends and family. Four broad themes relating to how the app helped toothbrushing were reported. These themes were motivation, education, compliance and perceived benefits. A mobile app is a promising tool to motivate an evidence-based oral hygiene routine.

Smartphones and mobile applications (apps) in clinical nursing education: A student perspective

BackgroundA pressing need exists to understand and optimize the use of dietary assessment tools that can be used in community-based participatory research (CBPR) interventions. A digital food record, which uses a mobile device to capture the dietary intake through text and photography inputs, is a particularly promising mobile assessment method. However, little is understood about the acceptability and feasibility of digital food records in CBPR and how to best tailor dietary assessment tools to the needs of a community.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of digital food records among church-based populations in resource-limited wards of Washington, DC, USA, using a mixed-methods approach.MethodsThis community-based pilot study was conducted as part of the Washington, DC Cardiovascular Health and Needs Assessment. Participants (n=17) received a mobile device (iPod Touch) to photodocument their dietary intake for a 3-day digital food record using a mobile app, FitNinja (Vibrent Health). The acceptability of the digital food record was explored through the thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts from a moderated focus group (n=8). In addition, the feasibility was evaluated by the percentage of participants complying with instructions (ie, capturing both before and after meal photos for at least 2 meals/day for 3 days).ResultsQualitative themes identified were related to (1) the feasibility and acceptability of the mobile device and app, including issues in recording the dietary information and difficulty with photodocumentation; (2) suggestions for additional support and training experiences; and (3) comparisons with other mobile apps. Overall, the participants accepted the digital food record by demonstrating satisfaction with the tool and intent to continue the use (eg, participants recorded an average of 5.2, SD 7, consecutive days). Furthermore, of the 17 participants, 15 photodocumented at least 1 meal during the study period and 3 fully complied with the digital food record instructions.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated digital food records as an acceptable tool in CBPR and identified contributors and barriers to the feasibility of digital food records for future research. Engaging community members in the implementation of novel assessment methods allows for the tailoring of technology to the needs of the community and optimizing community-based interventions.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01927783; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01927783 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/70WzaFWb6)

Nurses Need Training and Policies to Address Barriers to Use of Mobile Devices and Apps for Direct Patient Care in Hospital Settings

Security1 design of mobile apps is very important, and it is also important that researchers consider and disseminate the continually changing requirements. For mobile application i.e. a software program that runs on a mobile phone, its design, development and management need to consider security impact. In particular, because of mobile app is running on online devices, cyber security defense is required. In this chapter, mobile app security is discussed from the initial planning and design stage to its maintenance after its launch.

With countless smartphones and mobile devices being widely used, users can have community interaction, recreation, and can even make a purchase through their mobile devices. Therefore, the mobile network service is becoming increasing irreplaceable and essential to modern people's daily life. That makes the network security of mobile Apps become relatively important. And it is every App designer's biggest challenge to guarantee the security of their Apps in mobile gadgets. Moreover, cross platform mobile app (CPMA) combines the features of Web applications and mobile Apps. On the one hand, like Web applications, CPMA is implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. On the other hand, like native Apps, CPMA has direct access to local device resources -- file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Owing to the above advantages, CPMA has gaining more and more popularity. To sum up, how to develop a secured cross platform mobile Apps to prevent users' personal information from being invaded becomes the most interesting and critical issue. In this paper, we present a security CPMA to provide IT network services developers with related idea and model case study.

The Move to Smart Mobile and its Implications for Antitrust Analysis of Online Markets

Abstract. Georeferenced field data collection has become a popular practice allowing everyone to contribute to mapping objects or reporting events. The spread of mobile devices - capable of recording and sharing location coordinates, media and features while on the go - is primarily accountable for such diffusion. Accordingly, a number of mobile apps and software frameworks have been developed and released to perform field data collection. These frameworks allow to customize and dispatch collection forms as well as to manage contributors and records through web interfaces or database management systems. From the contributors’ perspective, specific mobile client apps need to be installed to access selectively the collection forms and contribute to the data collection on the field using their mobile devices. This operation might inhibit the sporadic contribution of occasional users who may not be willing to install additional software. To overcome this limitation, this work presents the Geo Collector Bot, an alternative software toolkit to empower field data collection projects avoiding the development and/or the installation of a specific mobile app on contributors’ devices. The Geo Collector Bot is a configurable Telegram-based chatbot enabling to dispatch of data collection forms that can be activated and filled in through Telegram chats. The ultimate goal of the presented work is to provide an alternative free and open-source software framework suitable for general-purpose field data collection applications. Development patterns and system architecture are described in detail alongside future improvements and outlooks for the Geo Collector Bot project.

Breast cancer is a significant global health concern among women. Digital health technologies, particularly mobile health (mHealth) with mobile devices and apps, have the potential to tackle challenges in breast cancer treatment. However, a comprehensive understanding of mHealth applications in breast cancer care remains limited. We retrieved 615 articles published between 1991 and 2025 from the Web of Science database and performed a bibliometric analysis using CiteSpace V6.4.R1. The analysis included a detailed review of publication trends, geographic distribution, institutional contributions, authorship patterns, and keyword analysis. The USA was the leading country in terms of publication volume, followed by PRChina and Australia. Research hotspots included "breast cancer", "quality of life", and "physical activity". Initially, research focused on screening and diagnosis, but it has since shifted towards emerging technologies like mobile apps and patient-centered care, including a focus on patient-reported outcomes. This analysis reveals the trends, impacts, and future directions of mHealth in breast cancer care. It can help researchers identify research gaps and guide healthcare providers in implementing mHealth solutions to improve patient outcomes.

Background. Mobile medical software applications (apps) are used for clinical decision-making at the point of care. Objectives. To determine (1) the usage, reliability, and popularity of mobile medical apps and (2) medical students' perceptions of app usage effect on the quality of patient-provider interaction in healthcare settings. Methods. An anonymous web-based survey was distributed to medical students. Frequency of use, type of app used, and perceptions of reliability were assessed via univariate analysis. Results. Seven hundred thirty-one medical students responded, equating to a response rate of 29%. The majority (90%) of participants thought that medical apps enhance clinical knowledge, and 61% said that medical apps are as reliable as textbooks. While students thought that medical apps save time, improve the care of their patients, and improve diagnostic accuracy, 53% of participants believed that mobile device use in front of colleagues and patients makes one appear less competent. Conclusion. While medical students believe in the utility and reliability of medical apps, they were hesitant to use them out of fear of appearing less engaged. Higher levels of training correlated with a greater degree of comfort when using medical apps in front of patients.

Mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasingly present in our everyday lives. They are equipped with a wide array of rich sensors and offer ubiquitous connectivity. These properties make the devices perfect candidates for data harvesting and privacy invasion over the Internet. However, these devices are usually locked down by OSes and carriers, making it difficult for the research community---and average users---to understand and mitigate online privacy concerns like disclosure of information to third parties. I argue that improving online privacy requires building systems that identify and control private information transmission. Our key observation is that a privacy dissemination must (by definition) occur over the network, so it is possible to detect and mitigate the leakage in the network traffic. Using this approach, the first challenge is how to detect privacy dissemination in network traffic. To address the problem, I developed a system called ReCon to apply machine learning algorithms to reliably identify Personally Identifiable Information (PII) without knowing the PII values in advance. Second, to quantify and understand the online privacy, I conducted experiments in multiple platforms (mobile applications in Android, iOS, Windows and mobile browsers) and studied how privacy exposure from mobile apps evolved over the range of eight years. Third, I developed a holistic approach to detect media exposure from Android mobile apps. Lastly, I extend such analysis to IoT devices and developed techniques to quantify information exposure---even for encrypted traffic---with semi-automated experiments. The goal of my work is to enable any Internet user to understand and control the private information exposed by mobile and IoT devices over the Internet. My work has enabled substantial progress in the increasingly important area of online privacy, has been cited and used by regulators and investigative journalists, and provides opportunities to improve privacy for individual users and organizations.

IntroductionMobile devices and medical apps are used by healthcare professionals in adult and paediatric emergency departments worldwide. Recently, there has been a drive toward increased digitalisation especially in the UK....