Health Records within Apple’s health app is being beta tested among a group of health systems and their patients.
Apple has rolled out an update to its Health app with the latest version of the iOS network, iOS 11.3. The company has invited a group of hospitals with patient portals to beta test the health record app with patients. The goal is to make it easier for consumers to access their available medical data from their phone and through multiple providers and reduce the fragmented storage of this data. The development, which has been in the works for some time, could determine if Apple can succeed where similar efforts by Google and Microsoft have either failed or sputtered.
Apple’s approach to Health Records is based on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a standard for transferring electronic medical records. The Health Records data is encrypted and protected with the user’s iPhone passcode, according to a company press release.
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“We’ve worked closely with the health community to create an experience everyone has wanted for years — to view medical records easily and securely right on your iPhone,” said Jeff Williams, Apple COO said in a company statement. “By empowering customers to see their overall health, we hope to help consumers better understand their health and help them lead healthier lives.”
The health systems taking part in the beta test include:
- Johns Hopkins Medicine – Baltimore, Maryland
- Cedars-Sinai – Los Angeles, California
- Penn Medicine – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Geisinger Health System – Danville, Pennsylvania
- UC San Diego Health – San Diego, California
- UNC Health Care – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- Rush University Medical Center – Chicago, Illinois
- Dignity Health – Arizona, California and Nevada
- Ochsner Health System – Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
- MedStar Health – Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia
- OhioHealth – Columbus, Ohio
- Cerner Healthe Clinic – Kansas City, Missouri
Dr. Alistair Erskine, Geisinger Health System Chief Clinical Informatics Officer, noted in a phone interview that Apple’s Health Record will help resolve some of the semantic interoperability problems and unleash a wave of innovation from app developers. He also noted that it will let patients decide what data should be shareable and will ease data transfer.
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“The primary reason why Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault haven’t worked at a level they wanted was their health records required a lot of effort from patients [to use]. Apple has made that process less complex. Front-end activation is one thing that has differentiated this effort from others…. I see Apple serving more as a unifier of that data,” Erskine said.
Asked if he saw the health record having an impact on interoperability from other EHR vendors, Erskine said, “Anyone who has been in this business for awhile knows that it is the battle of the data models from each individual EHR vendor.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times called attention to vacancies advertised on Apple’s website for insight into where the company is going with healthcare:
- A hardware engineer to develop “next-generation” health sensors for mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads;
- Software engineers for the company’s “health special projects team” to join “an exciting new project at an early stage”;
- An engineering manager for the company’s motion technologies team “to help shape the next set of groundbreaking features” in fitness and health;
- A biomedical scientist to help design studies for health, wellness and physiological measurement apps.
The announcement by Apple reflects a renewed push to develop personal health records or easier ways of transmitting patient-generated data. It also comes at a time where a wider variety of healthcare organizations are merging, such as CVS Health and Aetna, and non-healthcare companies are moving into the market, such as speculation surrounding Amazon’s recent hires and French insurer and asset management business AXA Group, which acquired employer benefits management technology business Maestro Health.
