Smart Healthcare Apps for Quality Cancer Patient Support

This paper analyzes the clinical and technological characteristics of cancer mobile apps that enable patients to securely record, manage, and share their information. It proposes an integrated approach towards developing quality mobile health apps for cancer and discusses issues relevant to the enhancement of patient experience and acceptance, adherence to treatment, and effective support of coordinated care. Regulation, standardization, and interoperability together with the existence of useful, accurate, and reliable tools for active patient engagement are important aids towards efficient cancer disease management. Improving quality of life and well-being, in a secure and safe manner that respects the patients' privacy, seems to be a key challenge, together with the exploitation of the outcomes of recent research projects, relevant to end user digital engagement towards an integrated approach for the introduction of trustworthy, interoperable, usable, adaptable, and quality mobile health apps.