It wasn’t just the Apple Watch launch date the Cupertino giant unveiled at today’s event; they also announced ResearchKit, an open source software framework made for medical and health research to help doctors and scientists gather data more accurately from participants using iPhone apps. And unsurprisingly, the iPhone maker has already managed to corner world-class research institutions to develop apps with ResearchKit for studies on asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
These institutions include UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Mount Sinai, Stanford Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Rochester, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Penn Medicine, Sage Bionetworks and UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
ResearchKit makes it easier to recruit participants for large-scale studies, accessing a broad cross-section of the population.“With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before.”
ResearchKit makes it easier to recruit participants for large-scale studies, accessing a broad cross-section of the population-not just those within driving distance of an institution. Study participants can complete tasks or submit surveys right from the app, so researchers spend less time on paperwork and more time analyzing data. ResearchKit also enables researchers to present an interactive informed consent process. Users choose which studies to participate in and the data they want to provide in each study.
When granted permission by the user, apps can access data from the Health app such as weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use, which are measured by third-party devices and apps. ResearchKit can also request from a user, access to the accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.
ResearchKit apps are available on the App Store in the US at appstore.com/researchkit and will be rolling out to more countries in the future. iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and the latest generation of iPod touch support ResearchKit apps.