Apple Launches Care Kit, An Offshoot Of ResearchKit
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Open-source app development platform allows users to track their own medical care.
Apple has announced the launch of CareKit, an open-source app development platform that allows users to take control and track their own medical care. It is an offshoot of the company’s existing ResearchKit.
According to The Verge, CareKit was introduced by Apple COO Jeff Williams during the company's recent “Loop you in” event at which he also demonstrated an app created by Sage Bionetworks and the University of Rochester using data gathered from Parkinson’s app mPower. The app helps patients with Parkinson's disease track the effectiveness of their prescribed drugs or exercise regimens. Patients can use it to track the progress of their disease and communicate with their providers. Other potential apps include those for post-surgery progress, home health monitoring, diabetes management, mental health, and maternal health.
On its website, Apple explains the platforms are “empowering medical researchers, doctors, and now you.” The success of ResearchKit, which has already produced significant medical insights and discoveries, “… has inspired us to widen the scope from medical research to personal care with the introduction of CareKit — a framework for developers to build apps that let you manage your own well-being on a daily basis.”
Williams said, “We’re thrilled with the profound impact ResearchKit has already had on the pace and scale of conducting medical research, and have realized that many of the same principles could help with individual care. We believe that giving individuals the tools to understand what is happening with their health is incredibly powerful, and apps designed using CareKit make this a reality by empowering people to take a more active role in their care.”
The open source framework will be released next month, allowing developers to build on the Apple’s existing modules, including Care Card, Symptom and Measurement Tracker, Insight Dashboard, and Connect.
“With ResearchKit, we quickly realized the power of mobile apps for running inexpensive, high-quality clinical studies with unprecedented reach,” explained Ray Dorsey, MD, David M. Levy Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “We hope that CareKit will help us close the gap between our research findings and how we care for our Parkinson’s patients day-to-day. It’s opening up a whole new opportunity for the democratization of research and medicine.”