Apple to turn iPhone into hub of medical info

Managing your health information and sharing them with your trusted doctor may soon become a lot less cumbersome than it is now as Apple is on works to turn the iPhone into a hub of all your medical information, the media reported.

A secretive team within Apple's growing health unit has been in talks with developers, hospitals and other industry groups about bringing clinical data, such as detailed lab results and allergy lists, to the iPhone, CNBC reported on Thursday citing half-dozen people familiar with the team.

The Cupertino-headquartered tech giant is also scouting for start-ups in the cloud hosting space that might fit into this plan, the report said.

If Apple's efforts show the desired results, both the medical community and users would have reasons to cheer.

Patients often find it difficult to share their information between doctors, especially among different hospitals or clinics, even in this digital age.

According to health experts, this problem is often referred to as the "interoperability crisis" -- and it is hurting patients,

The lack of data-sharing between health providers leads to unnecessary mistakes and missed diagnoses, Aneesh Chopra, former US Chief Technology Officer, was quoted as saying.

"As health care goes digital, the promise has always been to give patients and the doctors they trust full access to their health information," he said.

Apple in recent months has been in touch with health IT industry groups that are looking for ways to make this goal a reality.

The company has also hired some of the top developers involved with FHIR, an increasingly popular protocol for exchanging electronic health records, the report said.

--IANS

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