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The UOC to study how to implement mobile health apps within the healthcare system

A pilot test of 250 patients will be conducted

mSalut: challenges and opportunities for health systems. This is the title of the new UOC research project the Recercaixa programme is funding to analyse the use of mobile apps in the Spanish health system. Coordinated by Francisco Lupiáñez, professor at the UOC's Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences and a member of Open Evidence – a UOC spin-off, the aim of this research is to foster the adoption of mobile health apps by the public, taking into account the popularization of smartphones.

The project managers see mobile apps as "an opportunity to raise quality of life, improve health and quality of care, ensuring sustainability, equality and accessibility to health systems". This research will also include different points of view, such as Internet users – with a survey of 800 people, patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare organizations and mobile app developers.

Among others, the project will analyse the use of an app by 250 patients to assess its clinical efficiency, cost and effectiveness. To do this, the study has initial collaboration by healthcare professionals from Madrid's Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús; Catalan hospitals Parc Taulí in Sabadell, Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Children's Hospital, Barcelona's Hospital Sant Rafael and the Balearic Islands Health Service. The project also aims to participate in interdisciplinary working groups with the Catalan Association of Health (ACES), the e-health doctors section at the Barcelona Medical Association (COMB), the Centre for mHealth Skills at Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the company HealthApp which created the TCApp app for eating disorders used in the study.

Recercaixa Programme
mSalut is funded by the “la Caixa” Foundation's Recercaixa programme, which is supported by the Catalan Public University Association (ACUP). Together with this project, the programme funds three UOC research projects as part of the current call.