Apple Health Records

Healthcare is an enormous and growing market globally. Healthcare services was a $3.5 trillion market in the US in 2017, but a market that was largely untouched by the type of disruptive innovation that had overtaken other industries. Healthcare was considered a significant opportunity, not only because of its size today, but looking forward there are enormous clinical and financial challenges facing the industry.
There are significant concerns about inefficiency throughout the system. If technology firms can create solutions to provide consumers with better value than existing bricks and mortar providers, they could unlock a tremendous economic opportunity. Tech companies will be tested on their ability to navigate the complexity of the health sector and interact with regulators on topics such as security and privacy. However, the upside potential is enormous for those with the resources to invest for the long term.
The case explores how Apple began to explore the use of their iPhone platform in healthcare, attracting a great deal of attention with its innovations in the health information technology space. It has helped to establish the iPhone as a digital platform for healthcare, and has come to market with standards-based APIs to collect data from health systems and present them in the Health Records format. Now, Apple is working to unlock the ecosystem of app developers to focus on healthcare services using the data in the Health Record. But Apple is not alone in recognizing the potential convergence of information technology and healthcare services. The list of competitors is large and formidable, and all are developing strategies to tackle the same market.