Heal uses Health Records on iPhone to bring hospital data to house calls
Heal, a house-call organization, announced it is now supporting Health Records on iPhone, which brings together hospitals, clinics, and the existing Apple Health app to make it easy for patients to see their available medical data from multiple providers whenever they choose.
Previously, patients’ medical records were held in multiple locations, requiring patients to log into each care provider’s website and piece together the information manually. Apple worked with the healthcare community to take a consumer-friendly approach and created Health Records based on FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), a standard for transferring electronic medical records.
With the Heal app, the experience of sharing existing medical records with house call doctors is entirely effortless. After a Heal patient books their first house call, they have the option to share their Health Records with their Heal doctor. Once the patient grants permission, key parts of their health history is made available in the Heal OnCall iPad app, which is the interface of the Heal app used by Heal doctors. The patient’s health records are not stored in the OnCall app and remain secure on Heal’s HIPAA compliant, fully encrypted servers.
The American healthcare system is stacked with costs that can be alleviated with proactive care. Nearly 200 million people suffer from preventable chronic conditions, costing a projected $42 trillion by 2030. About one-quarter of hospital readmissions rates can be deterred with effective compliance. Whether a patient books an annual physical or has just been discharged after a hospital stay, a doctor in the home can then compare that medical data to the prescriptions in the cabinets and the food they see in the fridge to create a personalized care plan.
