Last month during their event, Apple announced CareKit, a special medical framework to allow developers to create apps that collect important medical data which then can be shared with physicians to better diagnose and treat a patient. Now, this toll is available for use as the company has officially launched it to the world.
Here’s a statement from Apple stating why they created such a powerful tool:
The more you know about your health, the better you can look after it. With the right tools, you can play an active role in managing your own health. That’s why we created CareKit — an open source software framework enabling developers to build apps that help you manage your medical conditions. Rather than relying solely on doctor visits, you’ll be able to regularly track your symptoms and medications, and even share the information with your care team for a bigger — and better — picture of your health.
Electronic medical records are only used by around 20% of doctors, so it’s unclear what kind of impact CareKit will have. However, if it proves to be as useful as advertised, expect your local hospital to begin looking into making the switch.
In addition, four apps have been released based off of CareKit as the start of hopefully something that will grow to huge success in the future. Here’s a rundown of each of the new apps:
- Glow Nurture, an app for expecting mothers to log progress about their pregnancy alongside receive information about their current state when the time comes. This app is free to download, however requires you to subscribe to a premium subscription in order to have access to all the features available.
- Glow Baby, an app that’s basically the sequel to Glow Nurture. Glow Baby allows mothers to track feed schedules and growth charts right from their iPhone. This app is also free to download however requires a premium subscription to access all the features in the app.
- One Drop, an app for people with diabetes. This app will provide one-touch logging of glucose, food, meds and activity to users while also syncs data from Bluetooth-enabled handheld blood glucose monitors, and provides reminders when meds are due. Unlike the two apps above, this app is totally free. It also comes with an Apple Watch app.
- Start, an app for those of you suffering from depression. This app will provide users with testing and progress-tracking to help determine the effectiveness of certain meds one might be currently taking. In addition, Start also provides meds reminders and side-effect logging for reference later. Like One Drop, this app is entirely free.
The software framework […] modules were designed by Apple’s team with the following use-cases in mind: administering a care plan, measuring symptoms, laying out insights via a dashboard to help judge whether treatments are working, and sharing health reports.
In addition, CareKit also integrates seamlessly with hospital records systems like Epic and Cerner, two of the most popular.
Will you be using any of these applications for your health? Let us know in the comment section and feel free to chat with others about your experiences!
Source: 9to5Mac
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