New IOS 15 Features Make It Easy For Patients To Share Health Data With Doctors

IPhone users will have the option to share data from the Health app. (photo: doc. apple)

JAKARTA - The iOS 15 operating system has just been launched for a number of Apple products. Of course, by bringing big changes, especially for users' health problems.

Some iPhone users will have the option to share data from the Health app directly with their doctor, via their own electronic medical records. A total of six health record companies have participated, and several of those companies said doctors and medical practices on their systems were eager to start using the feature.

Summarized from The Verge, Tuesday, September 21, users can use the new health data sharing function in the Health app to allow doctors to view data such as heart rate and time spent exercising. This new capability could of course help doctors keep a closer eye on metrics that may be relevant to a patient's health, without having to visit a hospital.

One such electronic health record company is Cerner, which controls about a quarter of the medical record market. Currently, any healthcare organization that uses Cerner records must implement the new feature.

Sam Lambson, vice president of interoperability at the company said they were intrigued by the feature, "after our client organization saw the demo and understood it, most of the questions were around how quickly they could implement it," Lambson said.

Alongside Cerner is Allscripts whose patients have tested the new feature, saying, "They can use it with certain patients. They have all the technology, and when it's available to patients, they can start promoting it to their patient population," said the general manager and vice president. Allscripts, Tina Joros.

Joros said one of the trial groups was excited about the new ability to view patient data from a home blood pressure monitor. Doctors at the medical practice usually recommend certain brands of blood pressure cuffs to patients that they want to monitor between visits. The cuff is already synced with the Health app.

So if the patient is willing to share the data, the doctor can directly track the blood pressure reading instead of the patient having to share it manually. “It really helps the data come full circle,” says Joros.

Allscripts said it plans to collect data on how many patients end up sharing information from their Health app into health records.

Companies will be able to see exactly how many patients are using the feature. Joros expects its use to gradually increase in the same way as Apple's other health records program, which launched in 2018 and lets patients pull data from their health records onto their iPhones.