‘Feverprints’ to Aid in Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases Using Apple’s New ResearchKit

As the human body grows and matures, it’s constantly battling and, in turn, developing immunity to the plethora of viral infections and environmental oddities among us.

So, taking that fact of life into consideration — what’s the number one cause for health-related concerns among children and adolescents today? The common cold? The flu? Of course, but requisite of both those conditions is often their first symptom — a fever. That’s just the body’s natural response to fighting off an infection, by heating itself to temperatures beyond which the majority of bacteria cannot withstand.

And so, perhaps for that reason (among others), Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new iPhone app, called Feverprints, which has been developed in coordination with ResearchKit — Apple’s open-sourced health study platform.

Feverprints, however, unlike most other ResearchKit-based applications that have been introduced thus far, is geared more towards the large-scale participation of the general public — so as to “crowdsource” data among a bigger population. The Feverprints iPhone app will ask users to periodically self-report their temperatures, answer questions about any symptoms they’re experiencing, medications they’re taking, as well as other health-related topics.

The ultimate goal of the app, as you might be able to infer, is to collect the data and use it primarily to narrow down, by correlating, the prevalence of normal and volatile body temperatures. And, accordingly, Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital hope to ultimately conclude upon Feverprints’ data — which may or may not aid in the diagnosis of infectious diseases. Additionally, the study is also interested in finding out more about how well fever-reduction medications actually work.

As an added layer of user privacy and transparency, any data collected by Feverprints will be anonymized; and while both adults and children will be eligible to enroll in the study, children must obtain their parent’s consent to partake.

Originally launched back in March of 2015, Apple’s open-source ResearchKit platform has since found its way into a number of iOS and Apple Watch applications. Most recently, for instance, Harvard University launched a study utilizing a ResearchKit app intended to track long-term Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) damage among former NFL players.

At last Monday’s “Let Us Loop You In” special media event, Apple took the wraps off another medical testing platform — known as CareKit, which is geared more towards helping patients who are exiting clinics and hospitals to more effectively manage their self-care and recovery at home. That open-source, health management platform is slated for public availability starting next month, with several leading institutions around the country already on-board.

Learn More: 4 Ways to Lower Your Data Usage in iOS 9

Would you be interested in providing crucial data to Boston Children’s Hospital via the new Feverprints app? What health advancements do you hope to see from this kind of technology? Let us know in the comments below!