MEDITECH today announced that with iOS 15’s availability this fall, their healthcare customers in the U.S. can offer patients the option to share records and other health information stored in the Apple Health app directly with their care providers.
This new feature builds on Health Records on iPhone, which creates a direct connection between healthcare organizations and a patient’s iPhone. Patients can see a central view of their allergies, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, procedures, and vitals directly within the Health app. And beginning this fall, participating organizations can enable patients to share their everyday health information with their physician, empowering patients to determine what data they want to share with selected hospitals and physician practices.
“For too long our industry has worked in silos, and patients have been left out of the decision as to who has access to their health records and when,” said MEDITECH Executive Vice President Helen Waters. “Patient empowerment is an important element to any successful interoperability strategy. We are excited to support this new feature in the Apple Health app and work with our customers to provide patients with a convenient means of sharing their health records and other types of health data with their physicians and care teams. This is a big step forward for healthcare and a significant win for consumer engagement.”
MEDITECH makes it simple for physicians to access shared Health app data by embedding launch points within a physician’s native workflow. Physicians can launch into a web-based dashboard from within the Expanse EHR to see information a patient has shared, without having to sign into another system. By seeing a more complete picture of their patients’ health, physicians can make more informed treatment decisions and avoid ordering costly tests that may have already been provided elsewhere.
Physicians can also review patient-shared data from iPhone, Apple Watch, and a wide variety of third-party apps and connected devices, for easy monitoring of trends and changes over time. By reviewing data like activity, heart rate, blood pressure, cycle tracking, sleep, irregular rhythm notifications, falls, labs, and more, physicians can have more meaningful conversations with their patients about their health and fitness goals, which contributes to better patient engagement and satisfaction.
Security and patient privacy are at the center of the feature’s design, which augments the SMART on FHIR standard to support end-to-end encryption, meaning all data is secure and encrypted in transit and at rest. All health data is under a patient’s control (including granular control over which data types they choose to share and with whom).
MEDITECH will reach out to current customers to provide further information, including enrollment details, in the coming weeks.
