Think about visiting your physician’s workplace. As an alternative of swiping a copay card and filling out a paper type by hand, the receptionist says, “We take Apple Well being.” You wave your iPhone over a digital kiosk, immediately importing your present medical file and insurance coverage data. Your copay is then deducted from a well being financial savings account. Voila! The physician will see you now.
This state of affairs is not relegated to the distant future. By introducing medication tracking to its existing iPhone Health app, Apple simply did for long-term prescription drug customers what it did for anybody with a bodily pockets. It paved the best way for an iPhone-native EHR software able to interoperable performance.
The upshot to customers, ultimately, will be unmatched comfort. For pharmaceutical corporations, Apple’s new software integrates their merchandise extra carefully to sufferers’ common well being information via the facility of cell apps ― one thing many drugmakers tried however failed to perform on their very own. And for specialty drug sufferers, whose medical journey requires probably the most money and time, the iPhone treatment monitoring software may show to be a godsend.
The idea of a medication tracking smartphone app shouldn’t be new. Medisafe, Mango Well being (acquired by TrialCard), and RediHealth are amongst these which serve the identical function, providing subtle capabilities and restricted knowledge integration with different apps. This and different present medication-tracking instruments have set a excessive normal for the business. Apple, then, can’t count on to transform each iPhone person to its native treatment tracker in a single day. However these apps can’t immediately entry Apple’s point-of-sale fee operate, or combine seamlessly with Apple Watch’s health-tracking options, or learn, reply to and share saved Apple Well being knowledge with a supplier. Permitting treatment monitoring throughout the Apple Well being ecosystem guarantees unbound performance ― not not like the distinction between altering from Venmo to Apple Pay.
For iPhone customers with solely a small handful of energetic prescriptions, that’s not a robust promoting level. These customers may solely use a treatment tracker whereas touring, in the event that they use one in any respect. Specialty drug sufferers, whose prescriptions fight uncommon or life-threatening circumstances, don’t have this luxurious. They need to take extra medication extra regularly than the final inhabitants. Pre-loading each actionable piece of information about all their pharmaceuticals ― together with when to take every ― has the potential to unlock a world of conveniences.
The iOS software underlying the Apple Well being framework is HealthKit, a database that holds a person’s total well being profile. It allows every other app in your iPhone to entry the info in your profile. What does that imply for specialty drug sufferers? Let’s say I want to scale back the frequency or dosage of one in all my 20 prescription drug regimens. I can enter the brand new frequency or dosage by hand within the Apple Well being treatment tracker. Then, with one click on, HealthKit can synchronize this alteration with the MyChart app, or whichever app my supplier makes use of to speak with me. Solely a local app may facilitate such pace and ease for one easy transaction.
The ability of those so-called “white label” engines ― background apps that facilitate data sharing amongst separate knowledge ecosystems ― shouldn’t be restricted to healthcare. That is merely one occasion of a broader, international development towards cell system utilization. The endpoint: sufferers and scientific suppliers alike will have the ability to ditch their desktop computer systems and use a smartphone to fulfill all their wants ― from checking into the physician’s workplace, form-filling, treatment monitoring, and every little thing in between.
Seventy-eight % of specialty drug sufferers use their cellphones when visiting pharma websites already. They’re partaking with their system on this approach always all through the day. This subset of the affected person inhabitants will inevitably profit most from Apple’s treatment tracker, pointing the best way ahead for the facility of native apps to remodel an inconvenient chore into an instantaneous comfort.
About Yishai Knobel
Yishai is the co-founder and CEO of HelpAround. Previous to HelpAround, Knobel was Head of Cellular at AgaMatrix Diabetes, maker of the world’s first smartphone glucometer. He additionally served in Microsoft’s Startup Labs in Cambridge and as an officer in an Israeli Military elite R&D unit. Knobel earned his MBA from MIT, and has a BA in Psychology and Laptop Science.
