An app developed by Mount Sinai researchers enables medical doctors to recommend evidence-based mobile health applications to patients at their point of care.
Deciding which digital health tools are worth physicians' and patients' time can be daunting, but now there's—what else?—a digital tool that can help.
RxUniverse is the nation's first enterprisewide digital medicine care delivery system, according to the researchers who developed it at the Sinai AppLab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York.
RxUniverse features a list of apps that have been evaluated for efficacy based on published evidence and incorporated into a digital prescription delivery system. Physicians can digitally "prescribe" these apps at the point of care.
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The platform was launched in August in a pilot phase in five Mount Sinai clinical areas. Since then, participating physicians have prescribed more than 2,000 apps, or 20 times more than the pilot goal, according to the Sinai AppLab's RxUniverse website.
"RxUniverse allows physicians and other healthcare providers to confidently integrate evidence-based digital health tools into their practice," Ashish Atreja, MD, MPH, Chief Technology Innovation and Engagement Officer and Director of the Sinai AppLab, said in a statement.
The platform seamlessly integrated with providers' work flow, and patients reported that they liked being able to use the apps to manage their own health, according to the website.
Data collected from prescribed apps and wearables can help providers tailor treatment plans for individual patients, the site says.
The Sinai AppLab has partnered with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners to launch a startup company, Responsive Health, which will license RxUniverse for use by other health systems.
"Apps have typically been recommended to patients verbally, but with the myriad of mobile health apps on the market, many with no proven evidence, it is a challenge for providers and patients. RxUniverse eliminates these uncertainties and barriers to digital medicine," Atreja said on the website.
RxUniverse is part of a larger ecosystem called the Network of Digital Evidence, which provides a community forum for health system technology experts, digital medicine tech companies, clinicians, and patients around digital medicine and scientific evidence regarding its design, efficacy, and implementation.
The applications for RxUniverse don't apply only to mobile health apps, according to the AppLab website. Specifically tailored educational content, patient satisfaction surveys, and other tools can be prescribed to individual patients or entire populations.