At one time or another, we’ve all woken up to a software update that installed a handful of useless apps you can’t delete. They have since served no purpose, except for the occasional notification you don’t bother to read. However, there are a handful of those automatically downloaded apps that aren’t as useless as we might think.
About two years ago, Apple released the Health Records app to all U.S. citizens. This app was created to ensure an easy way to access your own lab results, immunizations, medications, procedures and a handful of other health-related information. Before the invention of this app, patients, especially those with multiple different doctors and specialists, were required to log into each individual website of the institutions they visited to retrieve all of their health-related information. With this app, Apple made it possible to have all of this information at your fingertips—literally.
In the U.S. alone, over 11,000 health care locations support the use of this app. These institutions enter the patient’s information, and the patient is then notified when their information has been updated. This system not only creates a direct line of communication between a patient and all of the health care institutions that they have been to, but it does so in a very private manner. This app allows the information to be transferred from the healthcare organization to the patient without interference. The way the app is designed ensures that the information can only be accessed by the patient with a passcode, Touch ID or Face ID.
In the midst of a global pandemic, an app like this could be especially useful to patients, particularly those who have had a difficult health history in the past few months. COVID-19 patients, or even those who are immuno-compromised and actively avoiding the virus, are without a doubt in need of their health records right now more than ever. Apple took note of this global demand, as the U.S. is not the only country that would benefit from an app like this. They have since extended the accessibility of this app to Apple users in the U.K. and in Canada.
In Canada, Women’s College Hospital, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and Mackenzie Health have all become some of the first health care institutions in Canada to support the Health Records app. Similarly, the U.K.’s Oxford University Hospital and Milton Keynes University Hospital were among the first health care institutions to support the app from the U.K. Apple reports that in the coming months, more healthcare organizations within these countries will be added to the app to ensure more accessibility for patients worldwide.
This app has resulted in a sense of comfort sweeping multiple nations. So long as it remains, patients are able to make more informed decisions regarding their health as their information is made readily accessible to them while remaining private and actively protected. The extended use of this app is Apple’s noble attempt at a contribution to the stop of the spread of coronavirus.
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