|
 Fourteen of 23 top hospitals contacted by Reuters said they have
rolled out a pilot program of Apple's HealthKit service - which acts
as a repository for patient-generated health information like blood
pressure, weight or heart rate - or are in talks to do so.
The pilots aim to help physicians monitor patients with such chronic
conditions as diabetes and hypertension. Apple rivals Google Inc <GOOGL.O>
and Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>, which have released similar
services, are only just starting to reach out to hospitals and other
medical partners.
Such systems hold the promise of allowing doctors to watch for early
signs of trouble and intervene before a medical problem becomes
acute. That could help hospitals avoid repeat admissions, for which
they are penalized under new U.S. government guidelines, all at a
relatively low cost.
The U.S. healthcare market is $3 trillion, and researcher IDC Health
Insights predicts that 70 percent of healthcare organizations
worldwide will invest by 2018 in technology including apps,
wearables, remote monitoring and virtual care.
Those trying out Apple's service included at least eight of the 17
hospitals on one list ranking the best hospitals, the U.S. News &
World Report's Honor Roll. Google and Samsung had started
discussions with just a few of these hospitals.
Apple's HealthKit works by gathering data from sources such as
glucose measurement tools, food and exercise-tracking apps and Wi-fi
connected scales. The company's Apple Watch, due for release in
April, promises to add to the range of possible data, which with
patients' consent can be sent to an electronic medical record for
doctors to view.
"TIMING RIGHT"
Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans has been working with Apple
and Epic Systems, Ochsner's medical records vendor, to roll out a
pilot program for high-risk patients. The team is already tracking
several hundred patients who are struggling to control their blood
pressure. The devices measure blood pressure and other statistics
and send it to Apple phones and tablets.
"If we had more data, like daily weights, we could give the patient
a call before they need to be hospitalized," said Chief Clinical
Transformation Officer Dr. Richard Milani.
Sumit Rana, chief technology officer at Epic Systems, said the
timing was right for mobile health tech to take off.
"We didn't have smartphones ten years ago; or an explosion of new
sensors and devices," Rana said.
Apple has said that over 600 developers are integrating HealthKit
into their health and fitness apps.
Many of the hospitals told Reuters they were eager to try pilots of
the Google Fit service, since Google's Android software powers most
smartphones. Google said it has several developer partners on board
for Fit, which connects to apps and devices, but did not comment on
its outreach to hospitals.
Samsung said it is working with Boston’s Massachusetts General
Hospital to develop mobile health technology. The firm also has a
relationship with the University of California's San Francisco
Medical Center.
[to top of second column] |
Apple's move into mobile health tech comes as the Affordable Care
Act and other healthcare reform efforts aim to provide incentives
for doctors to keep patients healthy. The aim is to move away from
the "fee for service" model, which has tended to reward doctors for
pricey procedures rather than for outcomes.
Still, hospitals must decide whether the difficulty of sorting
through a deluge of patient-generated data of varying quality is
worth the investment.
"This is a whole new data source that we don't understand the
integrity of yet," said William Hanson, chief medical information
officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
FIRST STEPS
Apple has recruited informal industry advisors, including Rana and
John Halamka, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, to discuss health data
privacy and for introductions to the industry.
The company said it had an "incredible team" of experts in health
and fitness and was talking to medical institutions, healthcare and
industry experts on ways to deliver its services.
A few hospitals are also exploring how to manage the data that is
flowing in from health and fitness-concerned patients, whom many in
Silicon Valley refer to as the "worried well."
Beth Israel's Halamka said that many of the 250,000 patients in his
system had data from sources such as Jawbone's Up activity tracker
and wirelessly connected scales.
"Can I interface to every possible device that every patient uses?
No. But Apple can,” he said.
Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles is developing visual dashboards
to present patient-generated data to doctors in an easy-to-digest
manner.
Experts say that there will eventually be a need for common
standards to ensure that data can be gathered from both Apple's
system and its competitors.
"How do we get Apple to work with Samsung? I think it will be a
problem eventually," said Brian Carter, a director focused on
personal and population health at Cerner, an electronic medical
record vendor that is integrated with HealthKit.
(Additional reporting by Vincent Lee in Seoul, editing by Peter
Henderson and Stuart Grudgings)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
