Apple announced the healthkit recently. A dive into the medical world. The idea is simple even though there has been an explosion in the number of mobile fitness apps which aim to track everything from food consumption to blood sugar levels, there was no way for doctors to get that information. HealthKit aims to bridge that gap by connecting medical providers and medical researchers with that health data.
The move is exciting, however, will Apple make use of an existing medical informatics standard? Is the Apple Healthkit making use of any existing medical software standard?
As far as i can tell, they are not. Apple's trend is to re-invent and come up with better ways of solving problems.
The purpose of the Healthkit, appears for now to be research only. It sounds, though, as if it could become the leading medical information exchange system. Similarly to what happened with ApplePay, Apple might come up with an easy way for a patient to send their clinical records to a provider, maybe even through an AppleWatch, and it most likely won't be using HL7 FHIR! Hopefully there will soon be bridges out there. Even with bridges, HealthKit doesn't model the medical field to the extent HL7 does, not even remotely.
It's just that the thought that Apple could be, possibly, maybe the future of medical informatics standards scares me. But then again, it most likely will not be...
See Also
- http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/mobile-and-wireless/apple-partners-with-epic-mayo-clinic-for-healthkit/d/d-id/1269371
- http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/story/stanford-app-connects-ehr-apples-healthkit/2015-02-22
- http://dovetail.co/blog/apple-healthkit-dental-ehrs/
- http://www.quora.com/What-do-doctors-think-of-HealthKit
- http://motorcycleguy.blogspot.it/2014/06/ios-healthkit-hype-and-fhir.html
- http://blog.jaredsinclair.com/post/89292422325/healthy-skepticism-my-critique-of-healthkit-as