In Health Attitude, I wrote about mHealth and said, “People who track their health are healthier.” Apple agrees and sees a market opportunity to sell $billions of iPhones as a result. To help facilitate the growth, Apple has developed CareKit. CareKit is an open source framework allowing entrepreneurs and software developers to build upon four starter modules designed by Apple.

• Care Card helps people track their individual care plans and action items, such as taking medication or completing physical therapy exercises. Activities can automatically be tracked and entered using sensors in Apple Watch® or iPhone
• Symptom and Measurement Tracker lets users easily record their symptoms and how they’re feeling, like monitoring temperature for possible infections or measuring pain or fatigue. Progress updates could include simple surveys, photos that capture the progression of a wound or activities calculated by using the iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope, like quantifying range of motion
• Insight Dashboard maps symptoms against the action items in the Care Card to easily show how treatments are working
• Connect makes it easy for people to share information and communicate with doctors, care teams or family members about their health and any change in condition.

I see CareKit as the beginning of a consumer led healthcare revolution. It will be one component of the path toward healthcare which is safer, more effective, and lower cost than the old model. Read more about mHealth in Health Attitude and read a press story about CareKit at Apple launches first four CareKit apps