News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is wading into the complex world of mobile medical applications.The FDA has released a 30-page draft guidance designed to outline how mobile medical apps should be regulated as medical devices, targeting an issue that has long plagued physicians looking to adopt apps and vendors wondering how far they can go without incurring the regulations.

A new report from the National Research Council recommends steps the Food and Drug Administration, and agencies such as the Office of the National Coordinator, can take to ensure medical devices and health IT for home healthcare are easy and safe to use.These steps include developing new labeling standards, easier reporting of adverse events, improved training and methods to regulate, certify and monitor the devices.

Microsoft has announced that people using the Google Health service - scheduled to close on Jan. 1, 2012 - can transfer personal health information stored in a Google Health profile to a Microsoft HealthVault account using the Direct Project messaging protocols.The Direct Project, established by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, specifies a simple, scalable, standards-based way for participants to send authenticated, encrypted health information to known, trusted recipients over the Internet.

The British Medical Association has issued new guidance to doctors and medical students, advising them not to accept Facebook requests from current or former patients.According to the guidance, "Using social media: practical and ethical guidance for doctors and medical students," problems can occur if the boundaries in the doctor-patient relationship become blurred.The BMA's key points include: