AppleInsider Staff
As part of a campaign designed to drive adoption of its forthcoming HealthKit biomedical tracking platform, Apple has reportedly held broad-stroke discussions with major U.S. insurers UnitedHealth and Humana about potential partnerships.
Executives from both insurance companies confirmed the talks, according to Bloomberg, though they were mum on the content of the meetings. Apple was characteristically silent when asked for comment.
The publication cited a program instituted last year by British energy firm BP, in which the company offered employees the ability to earn health insurance discounts by making healthier life choices, as an example of the possibilities of such a partnership. Employees validate their progress by wearing a FitBit fitness tracker.
UnitedHealth and Humana — along with competitors Cigna and Highmark — are said to have added similar options for policyholders. It is possible that the talks with Apple would fit under this rubric, as HealthKit is designed in part to allow medical professionals easier access to the data generated by the growing plethora of wearable devices available to consumers.
Apple is already known to be working with the Mayo Clinic, and the company is rumored to have been in contact with Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins. It is also thought to have approached EMR providers Allscripts and Epic Systems to integrate HealthKit data directly into patients' medical records.
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
16 Comments
I hate western medicine and big pharma, but this is good for Apple regardless. It almost seems pointless to be in talks with these companies when there's no stopping them from jumping on android when the feature is available. I wonder if there is a health company Apple can purchase(Mayo Clinic?) that would give iDevices exclusive features/rights. Otherwise I see Giggle cloning HealthKit and what's the point after that?
I think it's extremely exciting. It can help you understand your health better and see how much calories you burn and how you can improve your health. My health is terrible and I would definitely benefit from using HealthKit.
I hate western medicine and big pharma, but this is good for Apple regardless.
It almost seems pointless to be in talks with these companies when there's no stopping them from jumping on android when the feature is available.
I wonder if there is a health company Apple can purchase(Mayo Clinic?) that would give iDevices exclusive features/rights. Otherwise I see Giggle cloning HealthKit and what's the point after that?
It would probably be more advantages for Apple to team up with companies like GE in the US and Philips in Europe.
It would probably be more advantages for Apple to team up with companies like GE in the US and Philips in Europe. Though in Europe Microsoft has a little advantage over Apple as their product HealthVault has been making the rounds since 2010 and is being utilized in many hospitals right now, including the one I'm currently staying at, everything from the blood pressure monitor to the IV pump. The amount of medical devices that it supports is massive, it looks like Microsoft is watching the medical industry very closely and writes drivers for everything that they can get their hands on.
Are all those devices on the network? Last time I was in the hospital, a couple years ago, the IV wasn't even plugged to power most of the time let alone have a network connection unless it was wireless. The thing would always wake me up with the low battery alarm. The hospital is only a few years old but for some reason they put far too few wall outlets in the patient rooms so they would just charge the IVs up somewhere else and roll a new one in to the room when the batteries die.
I hate western medicine and big pharma, but this is good for Apple regardless.
It almost seems pointless to be in talks with these companies when there's no stopping them from jumping on android when the feature is available.
I wonder if there is a health company Apple can purchase(Mayo Clinic?) that would give iDevices exclusive features/rights. Otherwise I see Giggle cloning HealthKit and what's the point after that?
Ha ha, the Mayo Clinic is a non-profit as are all but 2 of Minnesota's 146 hospitals. And by law, for profit health plans are not allowed in Minnesota, even though the the 600 lb gorilla of health plans, United Health, is based here. It's nice to deal with non-profit hospitals and health plans because you know that whatever actions they undertake, it is probably not driven primarily by greed. If the best health care provider in the state, perhaps in the whole country even, sells itself to a for-profit corporation, assuming it is at all legally possible, the whole state would be up in arms against it. Not that the Mayo Clinic even contemplates turning itself into a for-profit entity.