CareKit Finally Comes to iPhone and iPad With 4 Exciting New Apps
Toggle Dark Mode
CareKit was introduced back in March as a framework in which health professionals could build apps, that would work in sync with iOS, to deliver the best in health and medical management. This past week, Apple announced that the first four apps made using CareKit have hit the mobile market for user consumption.
Do not confuse CareKit with Apple’s popular HealthKit. CareKit is tailored towards individuals who want to track specific symptoms, monitor medical progress, and manage treatment; whereas HealthKit helps users keep track of specific health and exercise-related metrics (e.g. heart rate, calories lost, steps taken, etc.)
CareKit was announced in March, and was finally opened last week to all developers. As of late, there are four different CareKit iPhone apps available and these include: Glow Nurture, Glow Baby, Start, and One Drop.
All of these apps are focused on different aspects of medical insight and knowledge. Glow Nurture is a pregnancy tracker that brings a customized pregnancy experience to the user through daily logging, charts, tips, and more. Glow Baby (produced by the same company as Glow Nurture) is aimed at helping you manage all aspects of baby care, from diaper changes to nursing to developmental milestones, and more! Start is an app that helps you monitor depression medication, while One Drop is pointed at helping diabetics manage their diabetes.
With CareKit, Apple is hoping to bring better tracking and metrics to patients, who can integrate their numbers with Apple’s Health app or shared our with doctors, friends, and family.
Unfortunately, The Verge reported that upwards of 20 percent of doctors still haven’t made the transfer over to electronic health records. “The biggest challenge will be quality control and convincing doctors to use these apps,” mentioned Arthur Caplan, a biomedical ethicist at New York University. So will Apple’s new CareKit functionality and apps convert these naysayers? Only time will tell as to how popular CareKit will be among medical professionals.
What do you think about the first four CareKit apps? Is this a medical revolution in the making?
Let us know in the comments.