Apple is in talks with the Department of Veterans Affairs regarding providing portable electronic health records to veterans, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
Through the collaboration, Apple would develop certain software tools that enable the approximately nine million veterans enrolled in the VA system to transfer their medical records to iPhones. The tech giant would also provide engineering support to the VA.
Top agency officials and associates from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club discussed the potential initiative in 2017 in emails reviewed by WSJ. An Apple spokeswoman told WSJ that her company has nothing to announce.
People familiar with the effort said the two organizations have continued to develop the technology, according to the report.
Apple already has its foot in the door when it comes to health records. In January, the company invited a group of hospitals to beta test its Health Records program. The goal is to give consumers simplified access to their medical information in one location. Two months later, Apple officially launched the capability.
Thus far, institutions like Cleveland Clinic, Dignity Health, UC San Diego Health, Intermountain Healthcare and Yale New Haven Health have adopted the feature.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
As for the VA, it already has a full plate when it comes to health IT. The agency is currently in the midst of updating its homegrown VistA electronic health record system to off-the-shelf Cerner solutions. The two organizations inked a 10-year contract earlier this year.
But things have been rocky on the road to modernization.
In August, Genevieve Morris, the interim chief health information officer for the Office of EHR Modernization at the Department of Veterans Affairs, abruptly resigned from her role.
And although the initial VA-Cerner contract was for $10 billion, the cost estimate for the project has steadily increased to more than $16 billion, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
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