More and more often, in doctor’s offices, you can meet patients who use smartphones or other mobile devices as the source of their medical readings such as sleep duration, heart rate or blood pressure. Thanks to the new iOS 15 update, in the first fall months, iPhone users will be able to send their medical data directly from the Health application to their doctors’ electronic medical records systems.
Since 2018, iPhone users can download and add medical data from dozens of clinics and hospitals straight to their smartphone application.
The new integration will work with six with six electronic medical records companies in the United States at the beginning. Apple says that they will continue to add more in future. Doctors who use the records from those companies will be able to open any shared data within a patient’s health record.
The current workflow of keeping doctors informed about your health record is much more complicated. You need to send e-mails with your blood results, call your doctor or even sometimes visit your clinic in person just to inform them about your health records. It takes so much time and effort. Companies like Apple try very hard to make life easier and more comfortable.
The downside to this feature may be, that people can be overloaded with information that are not always completely correct. While the data collected by wearable devices and smartphones may appear helpful to patients, it is still not entirely clear whether they actually help people feel better and care better.
Resources:
https://support.apple.com/pl-pl/HT203037
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22526024/apple-health-app-data-medical-record-iphone-doctor-access