Apple today announced ResearchKit, an open source software framework designed for medical and health research, designed to help doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using iPhone apps.
“iOS apps already help millions of customers track and improve their health. With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before.”
Apple says world-class institutions have already developed apps using the framework, aiding in the study of asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
Data is only collected and used when allowed by the app users. The apps can collect data from the health app, including such information as weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use, which are measured by third-party devices and apps.
ResearchKit works hand-in-hand with Apple’s HealthKit, a software framework Apple introduced with iOS 8 to provide developers the ability for health and fitness apps to communicate with each other. ResearchKit can also request from a user, access to the accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.
ResearchKit also allows easier recruiting and data collection for large-scale studies, allowing a broad cross-section of the population to participate, not just those within driving distance of an institution. Participants can complete tasks, or submit surveys directly from the apps, so less time is spent on entering data, and more time is spent analyzing it.
“We’re excited to use these new ResearchKit tools from Apple to expand participant recruitment and quickly gather even more data through the simple use of an iPhone app. The data it will provide takes us one step closer to developing more personalized care,” said Patricia Ganz, MD, professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and Director of Cancer Prevention & Control Research at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Access to more diverse patient-reported health data will help us learn more about long-term aftereffects of cancer treatments and provide us with a better understanding of the breast cancer patient experience.”
ResearchKit will be released as an open source framework next month. For more information, visit: www.apple.com/researchkit.
The ResearchKit apps are available now in the U.S. App Store, at: appstore.com/researchkit. The apps will be rolling out to more countries in the future.
