Cerner, Athenahealth: Latest Working with Apple
Two major EHR vendors, the Kansas City-based, Cerner and the Watertown, Mass.-based, Athenahealth are both working with Apple to integrate their software into HealthKit, according to media reports.
Cerner and Athenahealth's affiliation with Apple would make them the third and fourth major companies in health IT to be reportedly working for the consumer tech giant. Previously, Epic and Allscripts were both rumored to be working to integrate their software into HealthKit. Apple has also been working with providers, like Stanford University and Duke University Hospitals.
HealthKit is Apple's service, announced in June at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC), which can gather and integrate health data from a number of apps and put it all into one interface. The data can include vitals, such as blood pressure and weight. This interface allows these different apps to communicate with each other, the company says. The phone will be included in an iPhone 6 in September. According to various media outlets, HealthKit was supposed to debut today with iOS 8 but will be delayed because of a software bug.
Cerner and Athenahealth, according to Reuters, have developed mobile health (mHealth) applications for patients. Those apps will debut when HealthKit is fixed.
