Apple partners with IBM on new medical research platform
IBM has just introduced IBM Watson Health, its new analytics platform aimed at advancing health and wellness. In addition, it has announced that it has partnered with Apple to enable the platform’s support for data from iOS apps that use HealthKit and ResearchKit.
HealthKit, which was announced by Apple at its WWDC in June last year, allows health and fitness apps to share their data with each other and with the Health app in iOS 8. ResearchKit, which was introduced by Apple at its special media event last March, lets researchers and developers create apps to collect data for medical research.
Indeed, both frameworks are very well suited to IBM Watson Health. And by linking to HealthKit and ResearchKit, IBM Watson Health can capture large amounts of health data from iOS device owners, strip them of the identity of the users, and store them along with data from other sources in a secure hub that allows access to and sharing among medical researchers.
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IBM Watson Health sure has the great potential of transforming healthcare. And it’s off to an auspicious start with its support for Apple’s health-focused frameworks.
This new partnership between Apple and IBM augments the two tech giants’ existing enterprise partnership, which they announced in July last year. That partnership has yielded a number of MobileFirst for iOS apps that include apps aimed at iOS device owners who work in healthcare.
UPDATE: In a press release, Apple has announced that ResearchKit is now available to researchers and developers.
See also: Sync Solver – Health to Fitbit companion app introduced, Health care apps will remind Apple Watch users to take their medication, initiate live doctor visits and more, and System Monitor for iOS, the all-in-one system health app, gets a long overdue update.
