A longside its industrial cousin, the digital revolution has created fundamental and irreversible changes to our way of life. Those changes are particularly apparent in the healthcare sector and from a UK perspective, digitally enabled services are a vital element in the strategy that the NHS is using to head off the £30bn black hole that will otherwise exist in its budget by 2020.
While the majority of us expect that goods and services be available within a couple of taps of a smartphone or tablet, in a healthcare context, a sizeable group of the population are either late adopters or remain seriously concerned about data security. Add to that the moral concerns that exist in relation to the commercialisation of patient data and you see the extent of the challenge that the NHS needs to overcome before it is able to realise substantial savings through use of digital health technology.
The lifeblood of any digital initiative is data. Exponential expansion in the volume of patient data should lead to higher quality analysis and a database that is of ever-increasing value. It is therefore no surprise that the NHS views its data as a three tiered asset, essential to the treatment of patients, vital as a resource for research and increasingly important as a potential source of commercial licensing revenue.
Most people see their health data as being extremely sensitive. That must be right, not just because it is so personal, but also because the wide disclosure of your health data can have serious consequences. We want a comprehensive health record to be instantly available when we require treatment, but we are also concerned about the same data being made available without consent for scrutiny by a prospective employer, or by a financial institution calculating our health and life insurance premiums.
The tension between data use and misuse was recently laid bare when the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) attempted to introduce its care.data initiative. Designed to make NHS patient data available to certain approved enterprises, it was subject to a poorly publicised patient opt-out regime and the removal of certain identifiers, which in theory, should have made the data anonymous. However, the technological changes which allowed the initiative to take shape, also created the enhanced data analysis tools which threaten the effectiveness of many data anonymisation protocols, so eroding public confidence in this type of initiative.
Whatever the shape of the new data protection regime that the EU is due to implement in the next 12 to 18 months, there are three factors which will be central to the creation of a workable digital health strategy. Firstly, the need to gain the fully informed consent of patients for wider use of their data. Secondly, the need for a global standard governing the anonymisation of that personal data and thirdly, recognition of the fact that healthcare data must ultimately be owned by the patient to whom it relates.
The first two factors are reasonably easy to grasp. The third is harder, as it runs counter to the current position where a data controller has a large degree of autonomy in relation to the use of data where it holds valid processing consents. In order to rebalance the data subject and data controller relationship, the regulators should adopt a more robust premise that a patient’s rights should be protected not just as the subject of any given data, but also as the ultimate controller of that data. While the law of copyright and database rights mean that data can be owned and traded like any other asset, a new right recognising the patient’s primary interest in his or her personal data is required.
The care.data initiative is laudable in its attempt to create a primary source of healthcare data. However, it falls down because of the flawed belief that an opt-out regime would provide sufficient safeguards against misuse. The high degree of trust that the NHS enjoys as both an organisation and a brand means that it is uniquely well placed to implement a single opt-in arrangement, through which it is empowered to hold and process patient data in a way that demonstrates that the interest of the patient is given absolute primacy.
While the number of patients who sign up to such an opt-in regime will certainly be lower than envisaged under the HSCIC’s original strategy, the clarity in relation to processing rights and hence the increased value of the resulting database should more than compensate for the loss of volumes. Perhaps more importantly, a strategy which is fully patient focused is surely the best way of both discouraging data misuse while also allowing those who have decided that open data is a fundamental part of modern life, to gain the benefits associated with the unconstrained analysis of big data and product personalisation.

Royal Philips NV, the Dutch company which is splitting off its lighting unit to focus on consumer health-care, reported a profitability drop at its future main business amid sluggish demand from hospitals and higher investments.
First-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation was 5.4 percent of sales at the health-care unit, compared with 8.8 percent a year earlier. The division’s revenue gained 1 percent in the quarter, while Philips’ consumer-lifestyle sales rose 10 percent. The stock fell the most in three months.
The profitability drop doesn’t make it easier for Chief Executive Officer Frans van Houten to convince investors that betting the future of the 124-year-old company on the $125 billion consumer health-care market is the right thing to do. Van Houten predicts booming demand for data offerings that help hospitals monitor and analyze patients’ health, reduce unnecessary visits and increase the efficiency of operations and medical procedures.
“The market for medical equipment in the United States is flat,” Van Houten said on a conference call with reporters. Many U.S. hospitals are currently focused on merging their operations to cut costs, rather than on increasing spending on equipment or services, the CEO said.
‘Fragile Recovery’
In China, the company faces an economic slow down, while the markets in Latin America and the Middle East are still very volatile, he said, adding that Europe is only at the beginning of a “fragile recovery.” Investments in new technologies and products also crimped health-care earnings, he said.
Philips shares dropped as much as 3.4 percent, the most since Jan. 27, and were down 3.3 percent as of 10:40 a.m. in Amsterdam trading. Before today, the stock had risen 14 percent since the start of the year, valuing the company at 25.9 billion euros.
While Philips’ health-care business faces a difficult market environment, it will eventually benefit from the digital investments by many hospitals, according to ING Bank NV analyst Robin van den Broek.
“Hospitals are currently investing in the IT-infrastructure needed to make the transition, and less in imaging systems,” he said. “That hurts now, but longer term Philips can reap the benefits of that.”
Apart from the lower health-care profitability, shares also declined because of a bigger-than-expected 16 percent sales drop in the conventional lighting business, said Rabobank Group analyst Hans Slob.
Separation Vote
Shareholders will vote on the separation of the lighting unit on May 7, and the company plans to carry out an initial public offering of that business in the first half of next year.
The deal marks a turning point for Philips, which has sold lighting products since its founding in 1891. The separation of the unit, the world’s biggest maker of lamps and bulbs, mirrors Munich-based Siemens AG’s move in mid-2013 to spin off Osram Licht AG as an industrywide shift toward more-efficient light-emitting diodes intensified competition.
The company’s earnings have no impact on the separation plans, Van Houten said today.
Total revenue reached 5.34 billion euros ($5.8 billion) in the first quarter. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast 5.08 billion euros. Earnings before interest, taxes and amortization dropped 9 percent to 230 million euros. The company predicts “modest” comparable sales growth for 2015.
“Philips is a self-help story and the plan to IPO or sell the Lighting Solutions business in the first half of 2016 suggest the possibility of value crystallisation in due course,” RBC Capital Markets analysts Andrew Carter and Wasi Rizvi said in a note. “Overall, the health-care turnaround still appears a work in progress and we don’t see first-quarter results marking a turn in investor sentiment towards Philips.”

Carlyle Florida Governor Rick Scott sued the Obama administration on Tuesday, challenging the federal government's decision not to extend a $1 billion healthcare funding program for low-income patients.
The state argued that federal healthcare officials cut the funding as a way to coerce Florida into dropping its refusal to expand Obamacare for the working poor in Florida.
Florida's Republican leaders and the Democratic Obama administration are deeply split over $51 billion available over 10 years to expand Medicaid coverage to some 1 million Floridians under the Affordable Care Act, the formal name for Obamacare.
"The president, once again, is overstepping his authority, this time by trying to force Florida to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act," Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
"The federal government is trying to do precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution prohibits it from doing: forcing states to expand Medicaid by threatening to cut off funding for unrelated programs," she added.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obama's signature healthcare law but ruled that each state could decide on the law's expansion of eligibility for Medicaid.
Bondi argued it was unconstitutional for the Obama administration to now try to use the Low Income Pool (LIP) as a "bargaining chip" to force Florida to accept the Medicaid expansion.
Medicaid expansion would provide health insurance to working adults who are too poor to purchase plans under Obamacare but unable to qualify for traditional government Medicaid programs.
But Scott and his Republicans allies say Medicaid expansion would not cover Florida's uncompensated healthcare costs, while LIP met "separate and distinct" needs, such as funding for children's hospitals and medical schools.
Florida received about $1.3 billion in federal LIP funding in 2014, but it came with a warning that the program lacked transparency and could be cut.
The state had earnestly sought to negotiate an extension of the program while addressing the federal concerns, according to the lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services.
The decision to no longer fund the LIP program put Florida "in an impossible position," it said. "Come June 30, the fiscal year will end in Florida and LIP funding will run dry."
Medicaid expansion has been deadlocked in Florida's Republican-controlled legislature, blocking agreement on the state's $80 billion budget.
State senators want the money, but the more conservative House of Representatives remains opposed.
Scott, a former hospital company chief executive, was once a tepid supporter of expanding Medicaid but recently changed course.
Conservatives have blocked efforts to expand Medicaid in several Republican-leaning states.to invest in Brazil Hospital Chain Rede D’Or São Luiz.

FDA files a court order against Medtronic to halt production and distribution of Synchromed II drug pumps
The Food and Drug Administration says Medtronic must stop most sales of its implantable drug pumps after years of uncorrected problems.
The FDA has filed a court order against Medtronic that says the medical device giant must halt most production and distribution of its Synchromed II drug pumps, which are implanted devices used to treat patients with cancer, chronic pain and severe muscle spasms.
Among other defects, some Synchromed pumps had to be recalled because they could lose battery power and fail, endangering patients. In other cases, the devices could cause patients to receive too much or too little medication.
Medtronic generally did not recommend that patients have the devices removed, unless they were proven to be failing.
The devices are surgically implanted and deliver a drug solution to the area surrounding the spinal cord. They are prescribed for patients who do not respond to oral medications or who experience severe side effects when taking them.
Medtronic said the agreement allows the company to make some drug pumps available on a limited basis to physicians. The Minneapolis-based company stressed it is not announcing any new recalls or safety alerts about its products.
"Patients with the Synchromed drug infusion system do not need to change their current course of therapy, have the pump removed, or take any other action as a result of this agreement," Medtronic said in a statement.
The FDA's consent decree was filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota and awaits the signature of a federal judge. The government says that Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak and neuromodulation business chief Thomas Tefft sold medical devices that failed to meet federal manufacturing standards, enforced under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
A consent decree is a form of legal settlement in which a company agrees to court-ordered actions without admitting fault or guilt. The decree will remain in effect until the FDA determines Medtronic has fixed the problems outlined in the document.
Medtronic will be legally required to hire an outside expert to help correct the problems.
"Defendants are well aware that their practices violate the Act," states the government filing. "FDA has repeatedly warned defendants, both orally and in writing, about their violative conduct."
The FDA issued the company three warning letters about quality control and manufacturing problems at its drug pump facility in Columbia Heights, Minnesota between 2006 and 2013. FDA inspectors visited the plant five times over that period, the agency said in a Monday statement.
Medtronic plc is the world's largest medical device company, specializing in implantable pacemakers, defibrillators, drug pumps and other medical equipment. Last year the company completed a $43 billion acquisition of Ireland's Covidien. The company now has its executive offices in Dublin, where it benefits from Ireland's lower corporate tax rates.
The settlement was announced concurrently by the FDA and the U.S. Justice Department.
Shares of Medtronic plc fell $1.40, or 1.8 percent, to close at $76.21.

A tiny Malden company has launched an easy, inexpensive treatment option for the nearly 45 million people in the U.S. who suffer from the auditory problem known as tinnitus. And the only equipment required is a smartphone with earphones.
Sensimetrics Corp. recently launched its first-ever app, called Whist, on the iTunes store, with a version for Android expected in coming weeks. In an interview, company President Pat Zurek said there are other apps designed to provide temporary relief to patients through the use of background noise — such as one made by the German company Tinnitracks — but he says they mostly consist of recordings of nature sounds or white noise.
Sensimetrics, which has helped develop technology centered around hearing for much of the 25 years it’s been in existence, developed Whist in order to allow the patient to adjust pitch, tone and other variables to match his or her particular symptoms.
The company has both a free version of the app and premium version available to download for $1.99.
Although it wasn’t Zurek’s plan, the launch of the app inadvertently coincided with a report last week in the medical journal Biology Today which documented the first-ever mapping of activity in the brain of a patient with tinnitus. That report has attracted worldwide attention, with articles in the New York Times and the BBC, in part because it found activity far beyond the core auditory areas of the brain during bouts of the condition.
Zurek joked that the company is “a little late in getting into the app game,” having been focused on contract work thanks to federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants for most of its history. The launch of an app is a stark change for the six-employee company in the face of declining funding from the National Institutes of Health, and is hoped to bring in additional revenue. The company also recently launched an app to help people who have color-blindness to better differentiate colors.
But the launch fits in with a trend in medical devices away from expensive, specialized equipment and toward apps and relatively cheap digital devices, like FitBit, to record health information and help people manage their own health.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced more than $3.8 million in funding to support grants focused on using nanotechnology to find solutions to societal challenges such as food security, nutrition, food safety, and environmental protection. The awards were made through NIFA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), which is authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill.
"Nanoscale science, engineering, and technology embrace opportunities in a broad range of critical challenges facing agriculture and food systems" said NIFA director, Sonny Ramaswamy. "Advances in nanotechnology help secure a healthy food supply by enabling cost-effective methods for the early detection of insects, diseases, and other contaminants; improve plant and animal breeding; and create high value-added products of nano-biomaterials for food and non-food applications."
Past projects include a Cornell University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute venture that led to the development of a new nanotechnology that could keep bacteria from sticking to medical equipment and food processing machinery. A project from Harvard School of Public Health is investigating the effectiveness of a chemical-free, nanotechnology-based method for the inactivation of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms on the surface of fruits and vegetables.
Fiscal year 2014 projects include:
The University of Georgia, Athens, Ga., $496,192
 University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa., $496,180
 University of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington, Ky., $450,000
 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass., $444,200
 North Dakota State University, Fargo, N.D., $149,714
 Rutgers University, New Brunswick. N.J., $450,000
 Pennsylvania State University, University Park, University Park, Pa., $447,788
 West Virginia University, Morgantown, W. Va., $496,168
 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis., $450,100
 The purpose of AFRI is to support research, education, and extension work by awarding grants that address key problems of national, regional, and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of food and agriculture. AFRI is NIFA's flagship competitive grant program authorized under the 2014 Farm Bill and supports work in six priority areas: 1) plant health and production and plant products; 2) animal health and production and animal products; 3) food safety, nutrition and health; 4) bioenergy, natural resources and environment; 5) agriculture systems and technology; and 6) agriculture economics and rural communities.
The Farm Bill builds on historic economic gains in rural America over the past six years, while achieving meaningful reform and billions of dollars in savings for taxpayers. Since enactment, USDA has made significant progress to implement each provision of this critical legislation, including providing disaster relief to farmers and ranchers; strengthening risk management tools; expanding access to rural credit; funding critical research; establishing innovative public-private conservation partnerships; developing new markets for rural-made products; and investing in infrastructure, housing and community facilities to help improve quality of life in rural America. For more information, visit www.usda.gov/farmbill.
NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education, and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges. For more information, visit www.nifa.usda.gov.

Private-equity firm Carlyle Group to buy stake worth $600 million in Brazil's largest hospital chain,Rede D'Or São Luiz SA
Private-equity firm Carlyle Group LP agreed on Monday to pay 1.75 billion reais ($600 million) for a stake in Rede D'Or São Luiz SA, Brazil's largest hospital chain, a source with direct knowledge of the deal said.
Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle acquired the stake through a capital increase, with controlling shareholder and Chairman Jorge Moll and Grupo BTG Pactual SA agreeing to being diluted to welcome their new partner, said the source, who requested anonymity since terms of the deal remain private.
Under the terms, BTG Pactual's stake will be reduced to 23.5 percent from 26.5 percent, with the Molls controlling about 68.5 percent. The Carlyle investment values Rede D'Or, which Moll founded in 1977, at around 19 billion reais, or 10 times the size when BTG Pactual agreed to become a shareholder late in 2010, the source added.
The source said Carlyle agreed to pay about 11 times estimated annual operationalprofits for this year, below the 12 times and 17 times average multiple seen in healthcare deals in the Americas, according to Thomson Reuters data. In the first quarter, healthcare industry mergers and acquisitions was the most active sector worldwide, with 609 transactions worth $110 billion, the data showed.
Brazilian hospitals and health clinics are drawing strong interest from global buyout firms like Carlyle in the wake of a January government decision allowing foreign ownership of those facilities. While the hunt for assets is already under way, most funds want to understand the particulars of the market before making a move, bankers, lawyers and investors familiar with those plans told Reuters recently.
The purchase of the Rede D'Or stake gives Carlyle direct exposure to a sector that accounts for 10 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product but is grappling with ageing infrastructure, a dearth of qualified staff and rising costs. Rede D'Or, which operates 27 hospitals in four Brazilian states, last year had revenue of 5.5 billion reais and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of about 930 million reais.
In a statement released shortly after Reuters reported the deal, Carlyle said it used funds from its Carlyle Partners VI, Carlyle South America Buyout Find and a local investment vehicle it raised jointly with state-controlled Banco do Brasil SA. Rede D'Or will use the money to finance expansion.
"This partnership with Carlyle Group is another achievement for Rede D'Or and is aligned with a long-term strategy in the Brazilian hospitals market … allowing us to accelerate our quality improvement plans and expand geographically," Moll said in the statement.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the quarter, the source added.
Industry leaders expect private equity involvement in Brazil's hospital industry to help restore profitability. Returns have stayed near record lows for the past two years due to high inflation and strained capacity, which the rapid expansion in health plan membership in the last decade only worsened, according to Anahp, a group representing private hospitals.
To ease the existing mismatch between supply and demand for hospital services, an additional 13,000 hospital beds are needed by 2017, Anahp data showed. Some funding for that increase, which could cost 7 billion reais, could come from private equity money.
Before President Dilma Rousseff's decision to end the ban on foreign ownership in the sector, foreign investors could only gain exposure to Brazilian hospitals and clinics by buying health insurers the way UnitedHealth Group Inc did in 2012, when it paid $4.9 billion for Amil Participações SA.
Carlyle hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Mattos Filho, veiga Filho, Marrey Jr & Queiroga Advogados to advise on the deal. Rede D'Or was advised by BTG Pactual, the largest independent investment bank in the emerging markets, and law firms Barbosa, Mussnich & Aragão and Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

The UK's newest hospital has welcomed its first patients.
The South Glasgow University Hospital is one of the biggest critical care complexes in Europe.
It has been nicknamed the "Death Star" by locals because of its imposing 14-storey star-shaped design, topped by a landing pad for aircraft.
The hospital cost £842m but the medical equipment inside has brought the final total closer to £1bn. The project was funded by the Scottish government.
The hospital features interactive displays for children developed in collaboration with the city's science museum, along with a cinema and roof garden in the children's wing.
Patients enter the main hospital through a dramatic atrium which stretches up the entire height of the building.
There are self-service check-in machines, and nearly all of the 1,100 beds have their own room, with an en-suite bathroom and views out over the city.
A fleet of robots deliver linen and other goods via a network of underground tunnels.
The hospital replaces four ageing hospitals across Glasgow, some of which date back to Victorian times.
Dr David Stewart is the medical director for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the man in charge of moving 1,000 inpatients and 10,000 staff to the new facility.
"This allows us to truly bring healthcare into the 21st Century," he said.
"For most of my career I've been working out of buildings some of which have been more than 100 years old.
"Frankly, although they were fine in their day, they were not suitable for the type of technologically based healthcare which we need to deliver now."
The new hospital has not been without its problems. Staff say there are not enough car parking spaces and there have been claims that there are not enough beds, despite its huge size.
"We're opening more beds on this site than we're closing on the other sites," said Dr Stewart.
"We'll have 3,500 car parking spaces and 60 buses arriving per hour at peak times."
By converging four hospitals into one, health bosses say they will be able to staff the rotas more easily and make sure specialists are on hand night and day.
This is in response to research which suggests people are more likely to die if they're admitted to hospital over the weekend or during a bank holiday.
 The first outpatients will be treated at the hospital on Monday.
It will take until June to move all of the staff and patients into their new surroundings.

'WattsUpDoc' is a stethoscope that detects viruses in sealed-box medicomputers
Two large US hospitals will in the next few months begin using a system that can detect malware infections on medical equipment by monitoring AC power consumption.
The unnamed hospitals will be the first in a list to test the add-on monitoring platform dubbed WattsUpDoc to check for potentially life-threatening malware running on critical medical devices.
PhDs Benjamin Ransford and Denis Foo Kune developed the platform which uses the “traditionally undesirable” power consumption side channel to detect malware with the accuracy of desktop anti-virus at run-time without the need to modify the hardware or software of systems.
The duo first revealed WattsUpDoc in a 2013 paper WattsUpDoc: Power Side Channels to Nonintrusively Discover Untargeted Malware on Embedded Medical Devices and have since formed the commercial outfit Virta Labs.
They say the need to secure embedded systems without modifying code is critical for sectors such as healthcare which cannot due to risk or regulation easily patch ”zombie” machinery.
“What you may be able to determine through AC power consumption are things like the computer that is plugged into an outlet, or more interestingly what is that computer doing?” Ransford told the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week.
“We are thinking about those machines that are really hard to patch, really hard to upgrade, and really hard to get inside.
“We turned side-channel analysis on it's head … traditionally it is used to disclose secrets but in this case we want to spy on malware instead of people.”
Ransford and Kune cannot yet name the hospitals which are trialling the platform as beta in the second quarter this year but told El Reg they have build a machine-learning feed for system infomration and even management (SIEM) systems and upgraded WattsUpDoc hardware.
“We've productised our research in two ways; designing a new hardware that puts the technology on a singe board, and building a cloud-based machine-learning infrastructure that processes the information flowing in from our hardware and integrates with SIEMs,” Ransford says.
WattsUpDoc works in part through classifiers under a supervised learning condition where the platform can be taught to identify malware, websites, or any other computer function that creates feedback over AC.
In tests the platform detected known and unknown malware with at least 94 percent and 85 percent accuracy respectively over different embedded devices, which was about the same rate as PC-based anti-virus.
In a live demonstration at RSA, the platform was able to generate unique power frequency footprints by visiting different websites including Yahoo, Twitter, and YouTube.
“This causes changes in the software execution path that echoes back on the power line,” Kune says.
WattsUpDoc was in separate tests able to identify the Alexa Top 50 websites using frequency signatures.
The former university of Washington and Michigan students point out that the same functions that allow their system to work can allow a very fast and brazen hacker to spy on machines if they are able to quickly switch a power socket with one that bears the WattsUpDoc monitoring kit.
Challenges to monitoring malware over AC include the wide variation in power consumption in modern computers – OS X regulates power consumption between keystrokes – and carving through noise for the hypothetical centralised monitoring of multiple machines.
It is the latest foray into embedded device security works. In 2008 Ransford was responsible for kick-starting a flurry of research into hacking pacemakers after he popped one on stage at DEF CON Las Vegas.

Apple Inc.’s health-tracking software is being connected to patient files at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, marking the largest integration yet for the tech company’s foray into the health industry.
The hospital updated its online medical records system this weekend, turning on access to HealthKit for more than 80,000 patients, Darren Dworkin, chief information officer at Cedars-Sinai, said in an interview.
“This is just another set of data that we’re confident our physicians will take into account as they make clinical and medical judgments,” Dworkin said. “We don’t really, fully know and understand how patients will want to use this and we’re going to basically stand ready to learn by what will happen.”
HealthKit, which synchronizes data from various health and fitness apps, was introduced last year along with the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and is a major part of the new Apple Watch, which went on sale last week. The move into health is part of Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s strategy to move Apple into new industries, including mobile payments.
“HealthKit, I think, is going to be profound because it enables you to take all of the information from different apps and if you desire to you can share that information with a physician, you can share it or you can place it in a way that you can begin to correlate the data and find out some pretty interesting things about your health and be able to monitor it,” Cook said during a conference in February.
More than 900 health, medical and fitness apps are now integrated with HealthKit, according to Apple. The Mayo Clinic and Duke University Hospital are among the other medical centers connected to the system.
The change at Cedars-Sinai allows patients using HealthKit to integrate personal medical information with their patient files, giving online access to their doctors. Weight, blood pressure, steps taken, glucose levels and oxygen saturation levels are among the kinds of data monitored through HealthKit.
“Rather than turn it on as sort of an opt-in, we’ve basically enabled it for all of our patients,” Dworkin said in an interview last week. “The opt-out is just don’t use it.”