Apple HealthKit is a tool that allows developers to create applications that connect with health data stored on iOS devices. It provides access to various types of health related information, such as fitness, nutrition, medical and environmental data which in turn, gives developers the ability to create apps that provide personalised health insights and track progress across various aspects of Health & Wellness - a useful asset for many companies in both the private and public sector.
As we have covered above, Apple HealthKit provides businesses with the ability to integrate health and fitness data into their apps and services including aspects such as heart rate, step count and sleep data. Here, we take a more granular look at what's on offer and why it might be relevant to your business.
HealthKit collects and stores health related information from a variety of different sources including fitness apps, wearables and medical devices into the Apple Health app and ultimately allows businesses to access this data (with user consent of course).
Businesses are able to request specific types of health data from users and HealthKit in turn, ensures data protection and privacy by requiring user consent before sharing any data.
HealthKit helps businesses in healthcare, fitness or other relevant industries undertake research by providing tools to analyse anonymised, aggregated health data for insights providing users have opted in. This can be incredibly useful for enhancing current or creating new services.
HealthKit of course works seamlessly with iOS devices but can also be synced with a variety of third-party health devices including Huawei watch, Polar watch and Xiomai watch thus, offering a wide ecosystem for businesses to tap into.
Healthcare providers and businesses can utilise Apple HealthKit to develop apps that help manage medical conditions, track medications or support telehealth services - a real benefit considering the challenges being faced by the health industry today.
In short, any organisation who is interested in tracking, collating and using health related data to offer or improve their services might benefit from using Apple HealthKit. This can cover a broad range of industries with some of the most relevant being -
Health care providers (hospitals, clinics, telehealth providers etc) can use HealthKit to remotely monitor patient data such as blood pressure, glucose levels and activity metrics all outside of traditional healthcare settings reducing the time and costs that would be required to obtain these details in person.
Through the use of HealthKit, app providers such as MyFitnessPal are able to extract activity, heart rate and sleep data from a users iOS device and use it to deliver personalised fitness plans, detailed performance metrics and fitness & wellness recommendations.
Organisations that manufacture wearable devices such as FitBit are able to not only extract data from Apple HealthKit, but also feed data into it through synchronisation. This allows users to obtain a more complete and detailed view of their health metrics by using data from multiple sources as opposed to one.
For companies that provide health related insurance and/or incentives to their clients, tapping into Apple HealthKit can be an effective and inexpensive way to reward (or penalise) policy holders for specific behaviours.
Universities, pharmaceutical companies and organisations who undertake health related trials an benefit from Apple HealthKit by collecting anonymous user data (providing consent is given) for large scale studies on health trends, drug effectiveness or behavioral research.
Apple Healthkit is a specific and nuanced technology that does not have hundreds of use cases but for the projects it IS suited to, you'd be hard pushed to find a better alternative.
HealthKit aggregates a wide range of user health data from steps and heart rate to nutrition and sleep into a single source. A personal health dashboard app can present this data in user friendly, insightful formats to help users monitor and improve their health and well being.
Workout data including distance, calories and heart rate can be both read and written to HealthKit making it a great choice for fitness apps that want to integrate with Apple’s native health ecosystem.
HealthKit allows integration of real time or historical biometric data, making it suitable for managing long term health conditions like diabetes, hypertension and asthma. Health professionals might benefit from using Apple Healthkit for building blood pressure monitoring apps, glucose tracking tools and even medication reminders.
Nutrition data such as calories, macros, water intake can be stored and retrieved through HealthKit. This allows diet apps to sync with other health data including exercise and/or weight for more holistic insights.
With user permission, HealthKit data can be securely shared with healthcare providers or caregivers, allowing for remote monitoring and preventative care through telehealth platforms, Elderly and/or post operative care tools and even caregiver companion apps.
HealthKit gives access to a rich stream of user data that can be anonymised and analysed for trends which makes it incredibly useful for academic or R&D projects (again, with user consent and ethics approval).
Our experienced, UK based developers have worked extensively with Apple HealthKit and created intelligent, tracking applications for a number of companies including Bupa. If you're looking to enhance an existing application or create a new one using Apple HealthKit and the unique features it offers, come and have a chat with us today!
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