Mobile Health Apps: Buyer Beware

With the ballooning number of medical apps available for smartphones and other wireless devices, new questions are being raised about potential liability should something go wrong.

"Unfortunately, the technology is moving faster than any regulatory body can keep up," Dr. Joseph Kim, an internist and executive at Medical Communications Media Inc. in Newtown, Pa., told a gathering of medical reporters this month in Philadelphia.

"There are a lot of questions of liability that have yet to be answered," Kim said, according to a report published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. "If a patient uses an app on the iPhone, who, at the end of [the] day, is liable? If someone buys a WebMD Symptom Checker and there's a problem, is the Apple Store liable? Is WebMd liable?"

Thousands of apps are available for consumers and medical professionals, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute. The potential market for remote medical monitoring devices alone could be as high as $43 billion, the institute reported last year.

But there's no way now for consumers to know which apps are accurate or reliable, Kim told reporters at the conference. The wireless "future is certainly bright," he said, "but we have to be very cautious. And given that technology is moving so fast, we have to be very, very cautious."

That bright future likely includes apps that alert a family member when a loved one fails to take medication or one that coaches a layperson who is performing CPR, other panelists said, according to the Inquirer.