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| Top Health App removed from App Store |
The Instant Blood Pressure Monitor app promised to measure your blood pressure using your iPhone’s microphone pressed up against your heart, and your finger on the camera. The app had already been removed from the Google Play store a few months ago.
We’ve received emails and complaints from several academics and physicians who were concerned how this app was being utilized.
Initially, the app didn’t even have a disclaimer in it when it was launched. Only when we reached out to the developers and told them of our concerns did the disclaimers of how the app should only be used for “recreational” purposes come up.
But even with these disclaimers the app was one of the top 5 grossing health apps in the US App Store for several months, garnering thousands of reviews from users who stated how they were using the app for actual blood pressure recordings — terrifying.
Our issue with the development team, Auralife, was never with the “novel” way the app purported to measure blood pressure. Rather, it was the lack of transparency and lack of granular data they provided — critical if you create something different like this.
Compare them to Opternative, a digital health product that has come up with a novel way to do prescription eye exams. They use a smartphone and a laptop to deliver a prescription for your glasses and contacts from your home.
They registered their product with the FDA and backed it up with an IRB clinical trial. Opternative still has detractors who are critical of their overall methods, but at least they are going through the right channels.
Opternative didn’t go for the easy buck. Rather, they had a novel idea, and knew if they wanted to make it legitimate they had to approach things the right way.
That’s something the developers of Instant Blood Pressure app didn’t do.
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