Apple’s Health Records initiative expands to UK and Canada

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Health Records
Health Records launched in the U.S. in 2018.
Photo: Apple

Apple has expanded its Health Records initiative to Canada and the United Kingdom. This enables healthcare institutions in the countries to offer users the ability to safely and securely check their medical records using the iPhone’s Health app.

The service has been available in the United States since 2018. To date, some 500 U.S. institutions support Health Records on iPhone. However, this is the first time Apple has expanded outside the U.S.

Oxford University Hospitals and Women’s College Hospital are two of the first first healthcare institutions in the U.K. and Canada to offer this feature to patients.

“We designed Health Records on iPhone to empower people to easily view their health records at any time, and we are thrilled to put this feature in the hands of customers in the UK and Canada,” said Kevin Lynch, Apple’s VP of Technology, in a statement. “We believe people should have access to their health information in the most private and secure way, and we have worked hand in hand with healthcare institutions and organizations to put privacy at the center of the patient experience.”

The list of hospital trusts offering the service in the U.K. are as follows:

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – Oxford, UK
Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – Milton Keynes, UK

And in Canada:

Women’s College Hospital – Toronto, Ontario
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton – Hamilton, Ontario
Mackenzie Health – Richmond Hill, Ontario

Making a contribution to public health

What Health Records did was to offer a centralized, secure means by which users could check out their health information. Before this, it was extremely fragmented. Using Health Records, everything from allergy and immunization information to medications and lab results are available in one place. The information does not go through Apple’s servers.

Tim Cook has previously talked about how Apple’s healthcare initiatives have the opportunity to be the company’s longest-lasting contribution to society. Transforming healthcare means a lot more than just letting users read their medication information on their iPhones, of course. Still, making this information more accessible to those it belongs to is certainly a good start.

Have you used Apple’s Health Records feature? Do you find it useful? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Apple

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