A Boxford-based company is giving Apple Health a way to access a person’s electronic medical record to more actively involve patients in maintaining their health.
The program is the latest for the 25-year-old Iatric Systems, Inc., which has 1,200 customers throughout the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
The company’s latest initiative would bring the electronic medical records to consumers through their phones.
“This is about building an ecosystem, or a roadway between these hospitals and consumers,” said Frank Fortner, president of Iatric Systems. “We’re getting to this point where there is a big convergence of the provider – they want to see patients engaged and activity participate in their health care. We’re just getting the tools in place to do that.”
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The program, which pulls data from a person’s medical record for the Apple Health app, is currently undergoing testing at two hospitals – the 150-bed Memorial Healthcare in Michigan, and the 122-bed King’s Daughters Medical Center hospital in Mississippi.
Though the company is located in Massachusetts, Fortner said Iatric Systems had good relationships with both of the providers’ executives, having already put in place several programs with the providers’ electronic medical records, and both hospitals actively were looking for ways to bring technology into their communities.
As both hospitals were already using Iatric’s software, setting up the Apple Health integration was fairly easy.
Fortner has high hopes for the program, saying that the company expects to see results from its implementation by the second or third quarter of 2015. From there, executives will begin to market the platform.
The program is intended to pull information from medical records to the app, but Fortner envisions a future that also allows patients to input data into their medical records.
Though Fortner wasn’t sure what the patient-to-provider data transfer would look like, the capability may help doctors better comply with federal “meaningful use” standards, which govern how providers use their medical records.
The program is intended to work across all electronic medical record platforms, using standardizations between electronic medical record vendors to pull information into the app.
Studies have shown that patients have better outcomes when they are more involved in their health, Fortner said.
Driving better outcomes will become increasingly important, as hospitals and physicians will eventually be reimbursed based on patient outcomes rather than the volume of services provided.
“Being able to proactively reach out to someone and make sure someone is taking medications, there is a lot of potential to where we can take this in the future,” Fortner said. “We’re just now scratching the surface, but we’re headed to a new future in health care.”
Date: November 20, 2014