Apple HealthKit Has Good Prognosis

Apple's HealthKit, Health app and now the Apple Watch positions the company with a revolutionary platform, allowing health and fitness apps to work together. Apple is seriously preparing to take a slice of the mobile health market, opening a door for partners to provide value-added services.  Overnight, Apple raised the game for other players in the field like Fitbit and Jawbone -- why do you think Nike shut the operation down earlier in the year? Given the current market situation, Apple has a lot going for it.

Apple's platform addresses the four key challenges of the mobile health ecosystem. It integrates data collected by different apps, stores it in a single secure place respecting individual country's privacy laws, facilitates the access to a patient's health and wellness data for hospitals and physicians, and makes this data usable.

Enabling a holistic view of a user's health and fitness data, Apple HealthKit empowers users to interact with physicians on a variety of health matters and actively participate in their care. Shared decision making is key to health outcomes. Combined with the use of wearables, it could be particularly promising for chronic disease management...