Today, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and Xcertia announced a new partnership to collaborate on mobile health (mHealth) solutions guidelines – addressing key topics such as accuracy, transparency, privacy, security, regulatory compliance, interoperability and end-user experience. The agreement will leverage CTA’s technical expertise on mHealth and Xcertia’s established and industry-developed clinical and design guidelines for mHealth apps to create a blueprint for developing and evaluating effective mobile solutions in the future.
“We’re excited to partner with Xcertia to grow our expanding portfolio of health, fitness and wellness standards and address specific challenges for mobile health solutions,” said Brian Markwalter, SVP, research and standards, CTA. “U.S. sales of health and fitness devices – including wearables, hearables and sports tech – will approach 50 million units this year. And with the subsequent increase in health data these devices provide, our work with Xcertia is a critical step in addressing the availability, transparency and reliability of that data.”
“The agreement with CTA is an important step in finally bringing some order to the mobile health app market of over 350,000-and-growing apps and the relationship between apps and the devices they interface with. By developing guidelines and standards for mHealth solutions that draw upon the unique expertise of our respective organizations, we believe that the end result will be the emergence of digital solutions with a higher level of trust and confidence for both consumers and healthcare professionals,” said Michael Hodgkins, MD, Chairman, Xcertia.
The collaboration between CTA and Xcertia represents how cross-functional organizations can come together to leverage their combined expertise in an effort to advance the potential mobile health solutions can have in healthcare. Xcertia experts began their work with CTA’s Health, Fitness and Wellness Standards Subcommittee (R6.4) at CTA’s recent Technology and Standards Spring Forum.
CTA has published a robust set of Health, Fitness and Wellness Standards, creating industry testing protocols, accuracy thresholds and data availability minimums for biometric conditions such as step counting, heart rate and sleep monitoring. For additional information about the mobile health solutions framework or CTA’s Health, Fitness and Wellness Standards effort, contact standards@CTA.tech.
Xcertia publishes annually the Xcertia Guidelines, a set of app design guidelines that help ensure accuracy, content, security and privacy within a context of appropriate user experience for application programmers and organizations looking to validate applications for use. For more information, contact information@xcertia.org.
CTA’s latest biannual U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report projects the total health, fitness and sports tech market will reach sales of 49.3 million units in 2018, a four percent increase from 2017; and earn $6.4 billion, a one percent year-over-year increase.