Facebook is set to follow Apple into the mobile health field according to a new report from Reuters.
Citing three people familiar with the matter, the report states that Facebook has been discussing the move with medical industry experts, and is currently in the early stages of assembling an R&D team for the creation of health-related mobile apps.
While it’s not stating what these apps would involve, the report also claims that Facebook is looking to tap into its massive data stores to create online support communities bringing together different people suffering from the same illnesses. Facebook was supposedly inspired to do this after realizing that many users of the social network use it to ask for medical advice.
To date, Facebook’s biggest claim in the health field was its successful organ donor status launch in 2012, in which registrations to donate organs jumped from an average of 616 to an impressive 13,054.
Seeing as Apple has been working on assembling its biotech mobile health team for at least several years, Facebook is hardly breaking ground with its possible entry into this market. Still, with Apple pushing its mobile health agenda through the launch of HealthKit and the health-tracking Apple Watch, this could be a great opportunity for Facebook to cement itself as one of the biggest name mobile developers working on the platform.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Facebook wants to follow Apple’s footsteps into healthcare tech”
I have a feeling that people are not going to trust Facebook with their health-related information. I certainly wouldn’t.
The company who views your privacy as an expendable annoyance is going into health care apps? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Stop it! You’re killing me.
I’m the cofounder of Ben’s Friends Patient Communities, the largest rare disease patient support network on the internet. Possibly larger than PatientsLikeMe. http://onforb.es/1fAnCze. We are also a 501c3 nonprofit. Any reporter reading this who would like our take on Facebook and patient communities, please email us at [email protected].
As long as they tie into healthkit it’s a win for consumers.