Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major public health concern in the United States. In response to the federally sponsored Million Hearts Risk Check Challenge, a team of programmers, software developers, health-information technologists, and clinicians in an integrated healthcare system in Wisconsin collaborated to develop Heart Health MobileTM (HHM), designed to improve awareness of cardiovascular disease risk and promote risk factor control among users. This paper outlines the development processes and highlights key lessons learned for mobile health applications. An agile project management methodology was used to dedicate adequate resources and employ adaptive planning and iterative development processes with a self-organized, cross-functional team. The initial HHM iOS app was developed and tested, and after additional modifications, gamified and HTML 5 versions of the app were released. The development of an iOS app is low in cost and sustainable by a healthcare system. Future app modifications to enhance data security and link self-reported cardiovascular risk assessment data to patient medical records may improve performance, patient relevance, and clinician acceptance of HHM in the primary-care setting. Legal and institutional barriers regarding the capture and analyses of protected health information must be mitigated to fully capture, analyze, and report patient health outcomes for future studies.
Highlights
Mobile health technologies and applications have dramatically increased in number and adoption across the globe in recent years
Conclusions Mobile health (mHealth) apps, both those related to Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other chronic diseases, are still in relative infancy, with inconclusive evidence to date in terms of the quality, effectiveness, and sustainability of mHealth interventions [4,6]
How such apps may improve the public’s health remains unclear, but Health MobileTM (HHM) provides a useful model by which healthcare delivery systems, even those in rural areas or outside of major academic health settings or technological hubs, can play a lead role in their development
Summary
Mobile health (mHealth) technologies and applications (apps) have dramatically increased in number and adoption across the globe in recent years. Applications and implementation is widespread across many aspects of healthcare, including public and private health organizations’ foci towards some of the most significant of public health concerns. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major public health concern worldwide and is growing. The number of individuals with CVD has nearly doubled over the past three decades, affecting an estimated 523 million individuals in 2019 [7]. In the United States, an estimated 86 million American adults have CVD [8,9], and the CVD mortality rate is equivalent to one death every 40 s [10].
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