Apple users can access health records via iPhone
Three southern Ontario hospitals making feature available to their patients
Dr. Danielle Martin has long envisioned that patients at Women’s College Hospital would be able to find help without barriers, like waiting 45 minutes to see a health-care professional.
So when Apple approached the Toronto hospital to be part of the Canadian expansion of its Health Records feature on the iPhone, Martin was eager to participate.
The feature allows Apple users in Toronto and surrounding areas to access their existing health records — information already available through hospitals and other health-care institutions electronically — on their mobile, through Apple’s Health app.
“I have to say, it’s very cool,” Martin said. “You can see everything you need to know about your own self, all integrated in a very user-friendly way.”
Health records from three Ontario hospitals — Women’s College, St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton and Mackenzie Health in Richmond Hill — are the first to make this feature available to patients as of Wednesday. Other health-care institutions across Canada that offer electronic records can sign on as well, Apple said.
Martin called the feature a potential “game changer.” It allows patients to access all of their records in one place instead of relying on health professionals to be kept in the loop about their diagnoses. This is especially important if someone is seeking care at more than one place.
Through Apple’s Health app, iPhone users can sign on to view their records through a hospital or health-care institution in their area. This will grant them access to immunization records, lab results, allergies, clinical vitals and other information through their phones.
This feature is already available for Apple users in the United States, where more than 500 institutions have made records accessible to patients through their iPhones. It has newly expanded into Canada, with hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area offering the first look at how it works.
Kevin Lynch, Apple’s vicepresident of technology, said the company has long aimed for access to health records to be part of the iPhone user’s experience since Apple launched its Health features and application in 2014.
Lynch said the Health Records feature on the iPhone offers a direct link between the user and their health-care institution. To access records on their phone, users will be given the option to log in through the institution’s pre-existing electronic health records portal. Their health information is then downloaded on their iPhones using an encrypted connection. Users can also log in with multiple hospitals and institutions if they access care at more than one place. They will also be notified when new data becomes available.
Apple worked with institutions that were already offering electronic health records for patients through a variety of vendors, such as InterSystems, Allscripts and Epic, a program used by Women’s College and hospitals in Alberta. Lynch said this information is then transferred to the iPhone using the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources.
Martin said Women’s College Hospital had a thorough privacy and risk assessment process with Apple before signing on. But she said if people are still wary, they can access the data through the hospital’s portal or request the records in person at the hospital.
Data that can be accessed through Health Records mostly include physical vitals, lab results and imaging results. Martin said electronic health records also have the potential to include information on mental health, and some hospitals in Toronto already offer mental health consultation notes as part of their records.
“You can see how that would be really useful,” Martin said. “If a person with a chronic mental illness ends up in another emergency department, they can access their own notes and share them with the team there.”
Alison Paprica, a health policy expert at the University of Toronto, said she sees great potential for further collaboration between public institutions like hospitals and private corporations like Apple, especially when it comes to accessibility of patient information.
But she maintained the need for transparency on privacy issues to make patients comfortable with using Apple’s Health Records feature.
“It’s not about just providing them with the technical details,” Paprica said. “It’s really listening to the concerns of people and making sure you’ve got a short, digestible understandable response.”