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The Usefulness of Mental Health Apps and Digital Therapeutics: Thoughts From the APA Annual Meeting
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How many apps do you use on your phone? John Luo, MD, a technology expert shares his thoughts on their usefulness at the 2025 APA Annual Meeting.
CONFERENCE REPORTER
"Every patient has different things that help them," said John Luo, MD, when asked about the use of digital therapeutics at the 2025 American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting. "The reality is, it's a balancing act. Digital therapeutics can work, but probably for a smaller patient population."
How many apps on your phone do you actually use? The average individual has 40 apps installed on their phone, but spends 89% of their time between merely 18 apps; More than half of those apps remain unused.1
However, the number of clinicians using digital therapeutics in their practice continues to grow, with an 8% increase in clinicians who view digital health tools as an advantage, from 85% in 2016 to 93% in 2022.2
Despite the proliferation of apps and digital therapeutics, Luo does not want to lose sight of the physician-patient relationship. "To me, that is why I am in medicine," said Luo. "If you lose that sense of connectedness and humanity, then really we are just playing video games."
Dr Luo is the director of Emergency & Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the University of California Irvine Medical Center. He is on faculty as a health sciences clinical professor of Psychiatry at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized educator and expert on behavioral health informatics. He has presented at numerous conferences, written books and articles on technology use in mental health, and he has been recognized locally and nationally for excellence in teaching.
References
1. Kataria M. pp Usage statistics 2022 that’ll surprise you (updated). Simform. January 5, 2021. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.simform.com/blog/the-state-of-mobile-app-usage/
2. AMA digital health care 2022 study findings. American Medical Association. September 28, 2022. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/ama-research/ama-digital-health-care-2022-study-findings
