ORCHA - Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications
Somerset ICB have teamed up with ORCHA (the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications) to create a website which contains over 6000 health and care related apps. ORCHA has a team of professionals, including actively practicing clinicians, to independently review and accredit health apps against the NICE framework for assessing digital tools (i.e., clinical assurance, safety, data and privacy, usability, etc.), giving each app an easy-to-understand percentage score, which will help people decide whether to download it or not.
Apps are a great way to get health and mental wellbeing support, helping everyone to improve their health and live healthier lives. There are so many apps on the market, it can be hard to know which ones to trust. Google Play and the Apple Store are unregulated so people may assume that apps are safe when they are not. This website provides a safe place for the public and professionals to find apps which have been assessed as clinically safe and secure. This solution is NHS endorsed and funded by Digital First Primary Care and is being used and promoted across the whole of the Somerset Integrated Care System. This may result in easing the burden on Primary Care by empowering the people of Somerset to use digital tools to support a healthier lifestyle. There are many different types of apps, which provide:
Preventative support (e.g. inhaler technique, stress management, fitness and diet apps)
Empowering people to help themselves (e.g. diabetes apps, symptom checkers, condition monitoring and mood diaries)
Administrative support such as appointment management and service signposting (e.g. NHS App)
Delivery of services (e.g. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and mole checkers)
The Digital Team have been working with ORCHA to develop and launch Somerset’s new, publicly available health and wellbeing apps library. Visit it here: https://somerset.orcha.co.uk
There are funded pro licenses available that can allow you to recommend apps to the public via text message or email if of interest. We also have promotional materials your practices could use (web banners, TV screen images, posters, social media assets, etc) so please get in touch with us if you would like to know more at somicb.digitalteam@nhs.net
