- More than 244,160 health apps are currently available to the British public, but until now there has been a lack of guidance on app quality
- AppScript is free to individual NHS clinicians and enables core digital patient engagement functionality, including app discovery, prescribing and patient engagement tracking
- AppScript pilots across UK-based GP surgeries and pharmacies found 41% of patients engage with AppScript app prescriptions
- IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science research found leading AppScript Essentials health apps have potential to save the NHS £2billion a year
- AppScript in the UK has focused on apps assessed, inspected and approved under NHS’s Digital Assessment Questions (DAQs) framework
IQVIA is making its breakthrough AppScript platform publicly available to NHS Clinicians, enabling them to prescribe NHS Apps Library apps to their patients for free.
AppScript launches following the recent IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science report, The Growing Value of Digital Health in the United Kingdom: Evidence and Impact on Human Health and the Healthcare System, which found leading digital health apps included in the AppScript Essentials list of top apps, have the potential to improve patient outcomes and save the UK healthcare system £2billion a year.
AppScript is a leading platform for discovering, prescribing, and tracking the use of digital patient engagement tools including apps, connected devices, and patient education content.
It has been made available to a number of beta testing sites across the NHS, including six GP surgeries and five pharmacies.These pilot programmes found that when NHS clinicians used AppScript to prescribe digital patient engagement tools to patients, their patients engaged 41% of the time, consistent with engagement requirements to meet estimated population health benefits shown in the IQVIA Institute report.
Furthermore, the NHS, using Digital Assessment Questions (DAQs), have vetted all NHS Apps Library apps and consider these to reflect good-quality digital standards for safety, experience and effectiveness.
NHS Apps Library apps available in AppScript could help NHS clinicians to make their practices more efficient and effective at supporting patients’ health goals.
GPs may also reduce unnecessary administrative patient visits, creating more time to focus on complex consultations, by using AppScript to recommend repeat prescription and telemedicine apps.
Additionally, some NHS Apps Library apps may enhance patient outcomes: for example, MyCOPD, which is commissioned by NHS England for the pulmonary rehabilitation of moderate to severe COPD patients and has been shown to be non-inferior to traditional face-to-face pulmonary rehabilitation, creating the potential to reduce emergency hospitalisation risk in this population.
“Digital Health apps create a unique opportunity for NHS clinicians to encourage patients to change behaviours well after they leave the GP surgery or pharmacy," said Professor Paul Wallace, clinical director digital at South London HIN and UCL emeritus professor of primary care.
"However, selecting and prescribing the apps most likely to provide patient care benefits has traditionally been a challenge. Our AppScript pilots showed that discussing and prescribing apps with patients was relatively simple.
"IQVIA’s AppScript solution is providing a necessary public service by enabling NHS clinicians to get started prescribing NHS Apps Library apps for free.”
Tim Sheppard, general manager of Northern Europe at IQIVIA, added: “Our AppScript pilots have shown the groundswell of interest NHS clinicians' and patients have in digital health.
"The public launch of AppScript represents a major step forward in our comprehensive strategy for progressing the vision of digital patient engagement across the UK.
“Individual clinicians will be able to electronically prescribe their first app within minutes of visiting www.appscript.net or downloading our AppScript iOS app from iTunes. This will help to quickly familiarise these clinicians with a novel-but-complementary patient care paradigm at a time when the benefits of this are increasingly clear.”
