HealthKit is a Start, But We Want More

It’s 2014 and all we get is HealthKit? 3 Health-Tech innovations the world needs now.

This week at WWDC, Apple unveiled HealthKit for iOS 8, it’s first step in the field of digital health products and fitness tracking. For us, HealthKit’s unveiling is really just a conversation starter.

Samahope is a non-profit crowdfunding website that raises funds for doctors who provide free medical treatments. We believe there must be more interaction between the health and tech fields if we’re going to solve some of the massive health challenges facing the global community. According to a study by the United Nations, more people have access to mobile phones than working toilets — an estimated 6 billion people out of the world’s 7 billion. How can we harness this resource to develop innovations that help our doctors treat their patients? Here are 3 innovations that we demand to see:

1. Medical Records:

HealthKit will store your medical records on your iPhone, how can we channel that technology to improve medical data and records in hospitals on the ground? This is a picture of our very own Dr. Robert’s patient records at Mulago Hospital, in Kampala, Uganda.

Not exactly digitized, and by no means an uncommon system of recordkeeping in hospitals in low-income communities. When you are overstretched, under budget, and have limited resources, record keeping isn’t always a priority. How do we provide the convenience of electronic records for iPhone toting urbanites, but not for hardworking doctors who need this technology the most?

2. Preventative Healthcare

Digital health technologies can greatly amplify preventative healthcare efforts. What if we developed an app that could provide engaging burn prevention education to people in rural areas via their older feature phones? This would greatly help overworked doctors who, in what little free time they have, also organize community education workshops.

3. Trust

There is discussion of whether physicians will trust the data from HealthKit; which is an issue within the medical field that is always difficult to solve.

Here’s an example. In Anzaldo, Bolivia, Hematogenous Osteomyelitis, a severe infection that spreads to the bones through blood, is unfortunately a common condition. Communities in Anzaldo often distrust non-traditional medicine, however this condition requires surgery or it can result in amputation or even death. Is there a tool we can create that will help begin a community dialogue around different forms of medicine as a means of building trust? For many doctors in the field, it takes years to build this kind of trust: can we create an app that helps with this process? Lets put Community Management to the test.