Apple is releasing an open-source developers’ platform called ResearchKit that will allow iPhone users to collect personal medical data and share it with medical researchers to find better ways to cure diseases like asthma and Parkinson’s.
One of the problems that plagues medical research is the difficulty of recruiting participants for research studies. ResearchKit will allow doctors to leverage the iPhone’s 700 million user-base to accelerate medical innovation.
“There are hundreds of millions of iPhone users, many of whom would gladly contribute [to medical research] if it was just easier to do this,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s vice president of operations.
ResearchKit will become available next month. Five individual apps—focused on Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and breast cancer—were released simultaneously with the announcement of the platform on Monday.
An app for asthma looks to discovers the triggers of the disease by mapping out various pathogens in New York City and matching it with the data of where asthma patients get attacks, all with the help of spirometers and Bluetooth inhalers.
The apps were developed in collaboration with leading medical institutions around the world, including Stanford and the University of Oxford.
Apple has also promised to be careful custodians of the users’ medical data.
“There is nothing more sensitive than your medical data—you decide what apps you participate in, you decide how it’s shared. Apple will not see your data,” Williams said.
