New mobile health apps come on the market every day. Consumer use is prolific, with health providers, health plans, and employers with wellness plans either using or promoting their use to their patients or employees. That use opens the door to privacy breaches if the mobile health app developer doesn’t follow necessary privacy and security regulations and best practices. Also, if the purchaser of or investor in the mobile health app doesn’t know what regulations need to be addressed as part of its development, the tool could pose a privacy and security risk.
The FTC’s new online interactive tool helps mobile health app developers, and the entity checking out a mobile app for potential use, determine which federal regulations apply to a particular app. It’s a simple tool but the help it will supply to mobile health app developers is invaluable. Through a series of online scenarios and accompanying Q&A, mobile health app developers will have a better idea of the various regulations that could apply, how, and even what agency has oversight over the particular issue.
Additionally, the page has some great resource links and glossary terms that link to other potentially pertinent areas of the FDA and HHS sites.
