Apple Pushing HealthKit as the Standard at Major Medical Centers

Apple wants HealthKit to be more than another gimmick, so the company has been been meeting with major clinics and health centers to push for widespread adoption once the feature is available this fall. What Apple really wants is for HealthKit to become the standard for health and fitness data collection and sharing for every clinic and medical center.

Apple wants HealthKit to be the standard for health and fitness dataMount Sinai, Johns Hopkins, and the Cleveland Clinic have all been in talks with Apple, according to Reuters. Health record management service Allscripts has also been courted by Apple, showing the company is looking to ensure HealthKit has the necessary support to make sure data our iPhones collect can be easily shared with our doctors.

HealthKit is a health and fitness tracking platform Apple developed as part of iOS 8 that lets iPhone users collect, view, and share data with their doctors. Instead of working like another fitness tracking device, HealthKit creates a standard third-party device makers can adopt for sharing information with our iPhones. Once the data has been collected, it will be viewable in other apps, and can be shared with medical centers, too.

HealthKit will no doubt tie in with Apple's own wearable tech efforts including the rumored iWatch, but will reach beyond that, too. Specialized health tracking devices can tie into HealthKit and automatically transmit the data they collect to your doctor, and if your doctor sees any problems the system supports pushing messages back out to end users, too.

The Mayo Clinic is already working with Apple on HealthKit support, and we'll likely see more medical centers on board when iOS 8 ships this fall. Kaiser Permanente is reportedly already working on HealthKit support, and the MyChart personal health record system is on board, too.

For doctors and medical centers, adopting HealthKit means they have a single system to support instead of dealing with multiple incompatible data tracking services. That translates into lower overall costs and potentially fewer medical record errors.

For Apple, it moves the company into a new market that covers both personal and professional use. Apple already changed the music market and smartphone markets. Now it looks like the company is ready to change the medical market, too.