BHH member Fundación iSYS recenlty presented therir iSYScore-Pro, which aims to objectively evaluate mobile health apps for healthcare professionals and providers.

The presence of mobile phones and smart devices has enabled the use of apps to support patient care. However, knowledge about specific mobile application recommendations for healthcare professionals is scarce.

In this context, Fundación iSYS begins its research with the aim of creating and validating a tool that evaluates health apps aimed at professionals based on a scale of trust, usefulness, and interest.

Using a literature review, a first draft of the scale was developed. This was followed by two Delphi rounds between the local research group and an external panel of experts. Once consensus was reached, the resulting 17-item iSYScore-Pro scale was tested. A total of 280 apps were originally identified for possible testing (140 iOS apps and 140 Android apps). These were categorised using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision. Once duplicates were removed and downloaded to confirm their specificity for the target audience (i.e. health professionals), 66 remained. Of these, only 18 met the final criteria for inclusion in the validation of the iSYScore-Pro scale.

The iSYScore-Pro scale uses a reliable and reproducible methodology (interrater reliability 92.2%; kappa 0.840; 95% CI 0.834-0.847; p<0.001) that standardises the assessment of confidence, usefulness and interest using 17 criteria based on existing peer review literature and input from an expert panel of health professionals.

As a conclusion of the research, which has been published in JMIR Publications, the iSYScore-Pro scale has been considered as a methodology to objectively evaluate mobile health applications aimed at healthcare professionals and providers. However, future research will be needed to adapt the scale to other languages and in other domains (e.g., legal compliance or security).