New digital health library to help residents stay healthy and well
Stoke-on-Trent City Council has launched a new digital health library to help residents stay healthy and well.
Residents across Stoke-on-Trent will be able to access a digital health library, thanks to a partnership between ORCHA and Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
The new service provided by ORCHA (Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps) was officially launched on Monday, 13 June 2022 and provides a free to use app to help support residents by making it easier to find apps to help them manage their health, and lead happier and healthier lives.
Under the NHS long term plan, it is now government policy that digital tools be used to supplement face-to-face healthcare, empowering residents to manage their own health and helping to reduce NHS spending. And has already created app libraries for 70% of NHS regions.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council will have its own app library, complete with hundreds of independently reviewed and highly rated health apps suitable to support residents with a wide range of medical and lifestyle issues.
There are over 375,000 health and care apps available on the market, but 85% of these do not meet agreed quality thresholds, making finding apps that are clinically assured, protect users’ privacy and match patient needs difficult.
Councillor Ally Simcock, cabinet member for healthcare and adult social care said: “Health and care apps are an important step in moving towards a more efficient and patient-centred approach to social care. Health apps are increasingly being used to support patients and service users with long-term conditions such as cancer and diabetes and with lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation and diet management.
“ORCHA, is one of the world’s leading health app evaluation and distribution organisations and this partnership will give confidence to the public and health professionals when choosing the right support for them and service users.
“With ever-increasing life expectancies and more complex long-term conditions, the new health app library will help overcome challenges that health and care systems face and provide a valuable resource, which is accurate, safe to use and tailored to service users’ individual health needs.”
To find out more: https://stoke.orcha.co.uk/
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