Apple Launches CareKit Platform With Support for Four Health Apps

[MacRumors]

Apple's new CareKit iOS framework goes live today, allowing app developers to create integrated software that helps patients and doctors to better track and manage medical conditions.

The open source platform was announced last month and aims to make it easer for developers to build health apps by offering a number of integrations, such as monitoring of medical symptoms, sending images of an injury, and keeping tabs on medication schedules. CareKit also offers two-way benefits, since it not only helps doctors monitor patients but also allows patients to observe their progress over time.

CareKit is made up of series of interactive modules. The Care Card can be configured to manage wellness tasks such as medication scheduling and exercise, while the Progress Card includes a Symptom and Measurement tracker for logging physical metrics like weight and heart-rate (with the potential for Apple Watch integration). The Connect module meanwhile lets users share their health data with medical professionals and family members, and can be viewed in tandem with Progress Card data in the Insight Dashboard module.

TechCrunch reports that the launch is limited to support for four iPhone apps at present: Glow Nurture fertility tracker, Glow Baby maternity app, diabetes monitor One Drop, and depression medication tracker Start. CareKit is compatible with existing healthcare record systems such as Epic and should be available on GitHub later today.

Apple's other open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes. The framework has led to some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients.

Article Link: Apple Launches CareKit Platform With Support for Four Health Apps

 

[MH01]

I hope some really good apps come out of this. Looks promising.

 

[jonnysods]

Any Apple Watch 2 hints in there???

 

[appledefenceforce]

Excellent news.

 

[diipii]

Apple's new CareKit iOS framework goes live today, allowing app developers to create integrated software that helps patients and doctors to better track and manage medical conditions.

The open source platform was announced last month and aims to make it easer for developers to build health apps by offering a number of integrations, such as monitoring of medical symptoms, sending images of an injury, and keeping tabs on medication schedules. CareKit also offers two-way benefits, since it not only helps doctors monitor patients but also allows patients to observe their progress over time.

CareKit is made up of series of interactive modules. The Care Card can be configured to manage wellness tasks such as medication scheduling and exercise, while the Progress Card includes a Symptom and Measurement tracker for logging physical metrics like weight and heart-rate (with the potential for Apple Watch integration). The Connect module meanwhile lets users share their health data with medical professionals and family members, and can be viewed in tandem with Progress Card data in the Insight Dashboard module.

TechCrunch reports that the launch is limited to support for four iPhone apps at present: Glow Nurture fertility tracker, Glow Baby maternity app, diabetes monitor One Drop, and depression medication tracker Start. CareKit is compatible with existing healthcare record systems such as Epic and should be available on GitHub later today.

Apple's other open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes. The framework has led to some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients.

Article Link: Apple Launches CareKit Platform With Support for Four Health Apps

"some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients."
Since these "gains" are "significant" you will have no problem being specific and telling us all about them.
Or is this just more rotten Apple BS ?

 

[starnox]

I wonder if all new *Kit will be open source from now on

 

[skinned66]

Apple definitely should keep up their attack on this space; here they have the potential to really shine and get quite a leg up.

 

[RickInHouston]

I wonder if all new *Kit will be open source from now on

Was that sarcasm? Thanks for the laugh.

 

[SMIDG3T]

What's the app featured in the pictures?

 

[actinide]

"some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients."
Since these "gains" are "significant" you will have no problem being specific and telling us all about them.
Or is this just more rotten Apple BS ?

I agree.. got me angry reading that phrase.
It looks to me that these apps are specifically designed for lazy people.

 

[Tech198]

Whats the difference between sharing vital info to doctors and emailing (which is against the HIPAA ?

i thought rules were in place to prevent this type of sharing.

 

[Mascots]

i thought rules were in place to prevent this type of sharing.

There are rules in place and this is within those rules.

Emailing information is wildly outside of those rules. Email is never secure.

 

[Saucesome2000]

My son has seizures that the neurology department at Vanderbilt cannot figure out. I will absolutely buy him an Apple Watch if they release an app that can monitor his metrics and produce reports of changes in his body before and during his seizures. I am very happy and hopeful about this news.

 

[hauntvictim]

Epileptic and on a new dose schedule, oh joy (sarcasm). So yeah I think this will be epic in terms of helping those of us that have trouble adhering to their dose schedule. Plus I am glad to find the START app, will be recommending that to friends.

 

[SHNXX]

As someone who uses the Health app daily, it's really interesting to see how the Apple health is taking shape.

 

[seasurfer]

Whats the difference between sharing vital info to doctors and emailing (which is against the HIPAA ?

i thought rules were in place to prevent this type of sharing.

The difference is that e-mail is not a secure communications channel. It could be intercepted in transit.

Apps using CareKit and HealthKit would interface directly with the doctor's electronic health record system using HIPAA compliant secure protocols to transfer the information.

 

[routine_analyst]

iDon'tCare SDK.

Stationary bikes still don't calibrate correct distances with iWatch and HealthKit... can't imagine what kind of garbage metrics this new SDK will produce.

 

[Knosis]

My son has seizures that the neurology department at Vanderbilt cannot figure out. I will absolutely buy him an Apple Watch if they release an app that can monitor his metrics and produce reports of changes in his body before and during his seizures. I am very happy and hopeful about this news.

I know this will sound controversial but I must share. You need to find a medical doctor that works with CBD oil. This is a non-psychoactive compound that is non-toxic and may will reduce your sons seizures to a large degree or eliminate them completely. I'm not writing you as a hippie or stoner. Fact is there's been a huge amount of success with children and seizures. You can find MDs and I mean real doctors not pot doctors that can help you with your son's condition using CBD oil. We have a few states in the US now where it's legal Colorado being one Washington state another. There are pediatric doctors in California as well that can help you. To be clear I'm not talking about medical script doctors or pot doctors I'm talking about real MDs the practice medicine to help people out.

Be well and Happy

 

[littleone]

as a type one diabetic im excited for diabetes management apps, installing one drop right now

 

[spiffers]

At the moment, no documentation, libraries or nothing remotely CareKit has been published on the developer portal. The GitHub account has still not published the repo, hope this is for real. No source within Apple regarding this? The CareKit web page says it comes spring 2016.

 

[MillieWales]

"some significant gains in epilepsy and asthma research since its adoption among medical professionals and contributing patients."
Since these "gains" are "significant" you will have no problem being specific and telling us all about them.
Or is this just more rotten Apple BS ?

Significant gains could and possibly does mean a large amount of data to be analysed. One of the key issues with medical research is data collection, you need regular consistent data updates from patients in the test group. I didn't read that there are miracle cures or breakthroughs imminent, more that the research can progress because they have a steady flow of usable data.

I'm not sure anyone is hiding anything from you or making anything up. Have you read about the Parkinson's research that has been happening because Apple made it so much easier? Being able to gather data so easily and continuously makes a big difference and could lead to some medical advances, certainly it will help with future diagnosis and symptom pattern tracking.

 

[Saucesome2000]

I know this will sound controversial but I must share. You need to find a medical doctor that works with CBD oil. This is a non-psychoactive compound that is non-toxic and may will reduce your sons seizures to a large degree or eliminate them completely. I'm not writing you as a hippie or stoner. Fact is there's been a huge amount of success with children and seizures. You can find MDs and I mean real doctors not pot doctors that can help you with your son's condition using CBD oil. We have a few states in the US now where it's legal Colorado being one Washington state another. There are pediatric doctors in California as well that can help you. To be clear I'm not talking about medical script doctors or pot doctors I'm talking about real MDs the practice medicine to help people out.

Be well and Happy

Thanks for the post. We live in Tennessee and it just became legal for medical purposes. We are actually going to talk with his doctor about it at the next appointment. I've read about it and I'm not opposed to it in the slightest. Right now he takes what I consider is way too much medication twice a day and he still has seizures every now and then. If he misses a dose, instant seizure. We mentioned it to his neurologist last time, but the bill had not yet passed. He said he was not opposed to it, but had not had a chance to study it too deeply.

Thanks, buddy!

 

[mhanlon]

At the moment, no documentation, libraries or nothing remotely CareKit has been published on the developer portal. The GitHub account has still not published the repo, hope this is for real. No source within Apple regarding this? The CareKit web page says it comes spring 2016.

It's up on http://carekit.org now... and on Github at https://github.com/carekit-apple/CareKit/

 

[CostaMoses]

Thanks for the post. We live in Tennessee and it just became legal for medical purposes. We are actually going to talk with his doctor about it at the next appointment. I've read about it and I'm not opposed to it in the slightest. Right now he takes what I consider is way too much medication twice a day and he still has seizures every now and then. If he misses a dose, instant seizure. We mentioned it to his neurologist last time, but the bill had not yet passed. He said he was not opposed to it, but had not had a chance to study it too deeply.

Thanks, buddy!

I hope that works out for your boy!