Apple Health Records: Everything you need to know!

Apple Health Records Hero Image (Image credit: Apple)

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What's Apple Health Records?
Is Health Records that important?
Is Health Records Safe?
Is Health Records only available in the US?
Healthcare providers participating in Health Records

Apple Health Records is a feature that has been around for a few years now. This tool helps you keep your medical information safely on your iPhone. And yet, you probably haven't seen or heard much of it. However, Apple is always improving and expanding this feature. Learn more about it here!

What is Apple Health Records?

Apple Health Records is a feature built inside your iPhone's Health app. However, unlike your Health app, which tracks your regular information, like the heart rate that you take with your Apple Watch, or an external heart rate monitor, your Health Records store you clinical and medical history.

With the help of institutions that support and use Apple Health Records, you can quickly access your medical information from your iPhone, share it with doctors or medical providers, and even get your test results right inside the app.

This feature was created because of the huge popularity of the Health app and the Apple Watch had. Because of how easy it was to record and track a lot of data, including your steps, your heart rate, and even the workouts you made using the Fitness app, formerly known as the Activity app.

Is Apple Health Records really that important?

Source: Apple

It doesn't matter how you look at it, having your medical information at hand is important, and it's practical as well. Apple Health Records helps both the patients and the care providers.

It helps doctors, hospitals and clinics have quick access to your Electronic Health Record, or EHR for short. They can quickly learn everything about your medical history, instead of having to rely on your memory to give the correct information. This would be extremely helpful if you go to several medical institutions, or if you just changed doctors. That way is easier to learn from these records and give the patient a better, more efficient treatment.

And it helps you have your records at hand, making it easier to know about your clinical records, and to share them with any institution that you want. Plus, you can see any additional information that's updated to your Health Records, like some test results that the medical institution sends you.

The best part is that the Apple Health Record feature shows you all your medical information in simple terms. You don't have to be an expert to read and understand your data.

How many times have you forgotten about your prescriptions, or when you took your last blood test. With Health Records, you don't have to even think about your tests. Everything is neatly stored in one place.

Is Apple Health Records safe?

This is one of the most important questions. After all, your medical records are highly delicate and private information. Apple has always worked hard to ensure its users' privacy remains secure, and the company is doing the same for your medical records.

During an interview with Kevin Lynch, Apple's VP of Technology, he tells iMore how "At Apple we value privacy so highly, we built our system to manage health data including health records in the most secure way. Health data is some of the most important and sensitive data that people have, and privacy is core to everything that we do."

Ultimately, your medical history is secure behind Apple's Health Records features. The only way you can access it and share it with professionals and other apps is by entering your PIN, and using Touch ID or Face ID. Plus, Apple makes it very clear that your information is only shared with the institutions you chose, and once you send or receive any type of information, the information is shared without using Apple's network.

It's also worth noting that Apple states it's not creating, receiving, and maintaining or transmitting any protected health information. If you choose so, you can upload your data to iCloud, which will be encrypted as soon as you upload it.

Is Apple Health Records only available in the US?

No, not anymore. Recently Apple announced that Apple Health Records would finally expand to the UK and Canada would be able to use Apple Health Records with only a few medical institutions. However, Apple also said there will be more institutions available in the upcoming months.

What healthcare providers participate in Apple Health Records?

You can transfer your health records from a multitude of healthcare providers into the Apple Health app. Here is a complete list of them in alphabetical order! We'll add more providers as they're announced.

Thoughts? Questions?

Still have some burning questions regarding the Health Records API that you need answered? Share them in the comments below and we'll do our best to answer them as we learn more.

Updated October 2020: Updated with the latest information about Apple Health Records.

Tory Foulk is a writer at Mobile Nations. She lives at the intersection of technology and sorcery and enjoys radio, bees, and houses in small towns. When she isn't working on articles, you'll likely find her listening to her favorite podcasts in a carefully curated blanket nest. You can follow her on Twitter at @tsfoulk.