Stanford (Calif.) Children's Health and Duke Medicine in Durham, N.C., are launching pilot programs to incorporate Apple's HealthKit platform into care plans for patients with chronic conditions.
The HealthKit mobile platform, available Sept. 17 with the iOS 8 update, aggregates user-generated and sensed data and displays it in a single interface for users in a related app, Health. Developed in partnership with Epic, it is also able to push this data directly to a provider's EMR system.
At Stanford, HealthKit will be used to help pediatric endocrinologist Rajiv Kumar, MD,track pediatric diabetes patients' blood sugar levels remotely. "We believe Apple's HealthKit has the potential for bringing together patients and care teams on the same platform," said Christopher Longhurst, MD, CMIO at Stanford Children's Health.
At Duke, the platform will be used to monitor blood pressure, weight and other vitals of some heart disease and cancer patients.
"Through a partnership with Epic Systems and the MyChart mobile app, Duke Medicine is pleased to be among the first healthcare systems in the country to integrate HealthKit into our EMR system and study its utility in improving the health of users" said Ricky Bloomfield, MD, director of mobile technology strategy at Duke Medicine. "HealthKit will provide patients the option to seamlessly share their own health information with their physicians. This technology has the potential to advance the utility of EMR systems and to simplify the ability for patients to share information with their providers."
Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins, Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and Allscripts are reportedly in talks with Apple to integrate HealthKit with more providers' EMR systems.
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