Christina Farr

Apple has been discussing how its "HealthKit" service will work with health providers at Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins as well as with Allscripts, a competitor to electronic health records provider Epic Systems, people familiar with the discussions said.

While the talks may not amount to anything concrete, they underscore how Apple is intent on making health data, such as blood pressure, pulse and weight, available for consumers and health providers to view in one place.

But some implementations with HealthKit may be a challenge due to a web of privacy and regulatory requirements and many decades-old IT systems, said Morgan Reed, executive director of ACT, a Washington-based organization that represents mobile app developers.

The National Security Agency is turning to Silicon Valley for topflight talent, but first it has to rebuild trust.

Anne Neuberger, special assistant to NSA Director Michael Rogers, said that, in the long run, the agency might struggle to keep pace with technology. Describing her role as an intermediary between the public and technology sectors, Neuberger promised to "rebuild trust" in the wake of what she called "media leaks."

Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill expressed concern about the way apps on smartphones and mobile devices are siphoning sensitive health data, and how some of that information may then be shared with third parties.

Commissioner Brill said that many companies now prefer to focus on how data is used, because that is where "the rubber hits the road when it comes to patient harm."

Developers should give consumers more tools and "robust choice mechanisms" before any sensitive data is collected and stored. "We don't know where that information ultimately goes," Commissioner Brill said. "It makes consumers uncomfortable.

A smartphone app that rids you of acne. Another that monitors your heart rate 24-7. One that detects skin cancer by looking at your birthmarks. If they sound too good to be true, they may be. Patients today use a number of apps that purport to track and treat a panoply of ailments, a headache for regulators and patient safety advocates.

Now, the advent of wearable devices bristling with sophisticated biotracking sensors is stirring concern in the medical community about misdiagnoses that could have serious consequences for consumers.

Some are asking whether Apple and Google should do more to police their fast-growing app marketplaces.

"Most of the health apps out there are built by people with zero medical experience," said Paris Wallace, chief executive officer of Ovuline, a popular fertility app. Worse, many developers don't have the resources for legal counsel, Wallace said, and are more likely to make false claims to patients without seeking FDA clearance.

The Food and Drug Administration in 2013 published guidelines on the kinds of mobile apps it will supervise. But industry insiders fear the agency may get overwhelmed as apps mushroom.

"The FDA wasn't designed for post-market surveillance," said Jason Brooke, chief executive officer and general counsel at Vasoptic Medical, maker of a mobile diagnostic that competes with a number of unregulated apps. The FDA needs to act soon to ensure that developers will "comply on their own."