The IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics has released findings of a study, claiming a majority of mobile applications for healthcare services have limited usage and features.

The “Patient Apps for Improved Healthcare: From Novelty to Mainstream” study reveals that diet and exercise apps account for most of the health-related mobile applications while development initiatives fail to meet the demands of patients with multiple chronic diseases or who are over 65 years of age, IMS said Wednesday.

“Harnessing the power of apps has become a focal point of innovation, yet barriers remain to their broad and systematic use by providers and patients,” said Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

Only 16,275 of the more than 43,000 health-related mobile apps from Apple’s App store are for patient health and treatment.

IMS recommends that app development efforts be focused on areas such as the role of apps in healthcare, security and privacy guidelines, app assessment for establishing appropriate usage and app integration with other healthcare aspects.