JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The explosion of mobile health (mHealth) interventions has prompted significant investment and exploration that has extended past industry into academia. Although research in this space is emerging, it focuses on the clinical and population level impact across different populations. To realize the full potential of mHealth, an intimate understanding of how mHealth is being used by patients, and potential differences in usage between various demographic groups, must also be prioritized. Here, we use our experiences building a mobile health (mHealth) intervention that incorporates an iOS app, Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure cuff, and Apple Watch to share pearls on (1) how user interaction data can be tracked in the context of healthcare privacy laws, (2) what is required for effective, nuanced communication between clinicians and engineers to design mHealth interventions that are patient-centered and have high clinical impact, and (3) how to handle and set up a process to handle user interaction data efficiently.