On June 4th Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Opens Health Records API to Developers to Empower Consumer Apps Managing Medications, Nutrition & More." Apple had said that apps empowering consumers to manage medications, diseases, nutrition and more are Coming This Fall.

A new report published today states that Apple has updated its list of medical partners ahead of a speech today by its Clinical and Health Informatics Lead Ricky Bloomfield, M.D., who offered insights into how the feature works for patients and providers.

Speaking at the ONC's 2nd Interoperability Forum (via EHR Intelligence), Bloomfield said that Apple opted to support an open health data-sharing standard called Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) that notably won't be final until the end of this year. FHIR aggregates a patient's health data from multiple sources, then makes it easy for the user to store, view, and share the data.

As Bloomfield explains, "You as a user have complete control over who has access to the data. If you don't want to share it, it won't be shared. It stays private on your device until you decide to share it."

Bloomfield also said that Apple specifically selected the narrower Argonaut implementation of FHIR because it's easier to use and will encourage greater adoption by medical providers.

Apple's initiative to enable iPhone users to securely access and carry their own medical records has continued to expand, as over 75 different health institutions are now supporting it — up from only 12 earlier this year.  

As of this month, the iOS Health Records feature is supported by 77 different health systems representing hundreds of hospitals and clinics across the United States. For more on this read the full VentureBeat report here. The FHIR website is here.

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