The NYTimes reports that the FDA clears medical apps to assist with diagnosis.

Mobile MIM is among a handful of medical apps that the F.D.A. has cleared for diagnostic use. Many others will probably appear as more smartphones and tablets make their way into the pockets of doctors' white coats or onto their office desks. In preparation, the F.D.A. is working on guidelines for such apps, and in September it conducted a two-day public workshop for feedback.

[...] called Mobile MIM, made by MIM Software, can turn an iPhone or an iPad into a diagnostic medical instrument. It allows physicians to examine scans and to make diagnoses based on magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography and other technologies if they are away from their workstations.

Only a small subset of the myriad health apps coming to the market will actually need the agency's regulatory attention, said Bakul Patel, a policy adviser at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, an F.D.A. unit in Silver Spring, Md.

The focus will be on apps that help with a specific diagnosis, or transform a mobile device into a currently regulated medical device. For example, an app to turn a smartphone into an EKG machine to determine whether a patient is having a heart attack would qualify for a close look.

Those Scan Results Are Just an App Away