Apple Health (personal medical records)

[steelyman]

I didn’t find a recent topic on this. I’ve had an above-usual amount of visits to PCP and specialists recently and expect that to continue.

Although I usually (but not always) receive summaries in paper and/or digital format after an appointment or procedure, the data can get unwieldy pretty quickly. I’d like it consolidated in one place for tracking, trends, later review and summarization.

I decided to try out Apple Health in a more thorough way than I had in the past. It’s easy to enter vitals (BP, HR, oxygen saturation, weight, etc) for things that can be measured at home.

I’d learned to link a few apps (nutrition, Fitbit, meditation) to Health and they all work.

I was happy to find that my local large hospital where I go for specialists participates in the Epic system and I enabled syncing of my medical records from there without much problem.

I had no luck with records from my PCP (private practice). They use Athenahealth, apparently targeting private practices. Forget dental practices.

So I have a partial solution but it could be better. I’m not concerning myself with anything related to insurance, just health status and care history.

Is this pretty much the case for most people? A while ago a friend worked on a project (govt funded) to improve medical record systems and told me what a mess it was/is. Now I know what he was up against!

 

[MRG]

I had a dose of versed, ketamine, and propofol this morning, so excuse my rant.

I was having a conversation with an EMR records management person and listened to their issues. Wow, a bunch of systems, mostly vertical silos, but the vendors are all working on interoperability[emoji41]. No they're not! Why would I build my own gallows as a vendor? If I build out a substantial portion of information sharing why won't provider X cast my software away when someone does it better, cheaper?( I had weekly doses of this crap at Megacorp).

The way it was described to me, even if two providers are on the same vendor's stack they might not be able to easily exchange data between the two.As an example of this insanity I had to carry two different DVDs 60 miles away because some jackwad can't do a copy of my MRI! Nor can the jackwad build a proper secure server so they could use this newfangled FTP stuff.

Don't get me started on how much data can be lost after 2 changes in the ownership of medical records.

I wouldn't expect the smaller providers to be able to pay up for the magic quadrant solutions, they can't afford it. My uneducated opinion is the smaller players will do more innovative integration as that's their value add.

I think you're way ahead of the curve.

 

[steelyman]

I just updated to iOS 13.1 and poked around at the changes. On the positive side, the ones related to Health look nice but will take some getting used to.

The basic problem of acquiring external data remains but Watch owners might be better able to judge that since it seems better aligned with the Apple ecosystem.

 

[steelyman]

A little bit of a bummer: I’m in the process of setting up a new iPad and making sure the apps I use on my iPhone and iTouch are working.

I got to Apple Health and... nothing. I thought it’d be pre-installed on the device and searched with no luck.

I decided not to trust some random Internet post and called the local Apple Store. They directed me to Apple support who spent about a half hour with me. I was surprised they didn’t have a quick answer from some database that could match apps against devices and OS to see what’s available and supported or not. But the support rep was stumped.

She and I tried all sorts of things to get an answer but the conclusion reached is that Health isn’t ready for prime time on the iPad. I’m on some queue to get a final answer (I hope).

I’ve been setting up and using Health on the smaller devices and had hoped to use it on iPad for upcoming doctor visits, especially graphical displays.

[ADDED] Correcting a misstatement in a prior post of mine earlier in this thread: I didn’t link Fitbit to Health, rather an app called “Lose It!” that I use for recording food/nutrition (my weight is fine, no need to drop lbs).

[ADDED] I hadn’t tried to check for Health on MacOS either. I’m running Mojave currently. It doesn’t seem to be available there either. [emoji20]

I don’t know (because I don’t have one) but I think the Watch supports Health as a data source.

 

[steelyman]

While this doesn’t apply to me (I’m not a veteran), it might be useful to others.

I’ve been using Apple Health a fair amount this year and, while it has its quirks, I think it’s a step in the right direction.

Apple and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Wednesday that veterans can now access their health information on their iPhone via Apple’s health records service.

The move enables veterans to see their medical information in one place and share it with their doctors, even if they seek care from multiple providers. That includes immunizations, medications and lab results, as well as information that they gather from health-tracking apps.

Non-veterans can also use Apple health records, but they’ll only see data if their health provider is integrated with the service. Otherwise, they can access that information via other channels, like their hospitals’ patient record software, but that can be arduous.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/app...records-service-to-veterans-with-iphones.html