Know Your Numbers: Creation and implementation of a novel community health mobile application (app) by student pharmacists.

OBJECTIVES: A free mobile application (app), Know Your Numbers (KYN), was developed by student pharmacists to assist underserved community members to track their health numbers. The study objectives included creating a health app, implementing a pilot program, and analyzing the frequency of app use and perceptions of community members toward their health numbers, pharmacists, and health apps.

SETTING: Student pharmacists recruited participants at the community clinics and health fairs organized in underserved communities of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: This study used a pre- and post-survey study design to compare perceptions before and after use of a health app. Eligible participants completed a 22-item pre-survey that assessed understanding of their health numbers, previous health app use, and perceptions of pharmacists.

EVALUATION: Frequency of app use and change in perceptions of community members toward health numbers, pharmacists, and health apps before and after enrolling in KYN were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed rank tests for matched pre- and post-surveys.

RESULTS: Thirty-three participants were enrolled for 56 days. African American participants (93.9%) earned less than $25,000 annually (56.7%). On average, participants had 3.98 interactions per week. Before using the mobile health app, 84.8% of users felt comfortable using a health app, but only 9% used one regularly. The post-survey response rate was 27.2% (n = 9). More participants agreed that a health app helped them to meet their health goals after the program (24.4% to 100%; P = 0.0006). More than 90% of participants agreed in both surveys that it is important to check their health numbers regularly and that they trust pharmacists to provide accurate information.

CONCLUSION: KYN is a novel mobile tool that promotes chronic disease self-management and the profession of pharmacy. These findings support the benefits of mobile health app's usability and its ability to assist in achieving personal health goals.