Apple wants to turn iPhones into medical data banks
Apple's health unit has been holding secret talks with developers and medical industry groups about bringing medical data, such as health records and allergy lists, to the iPhone, according to six insiders cited by CNBC. The tech giant is also looking into cloud-hosting start-ups whose technologies might fit into its plans, said one source. In moving into the medical data sector, Apple could help to resolve data sharing issues between healthcare providers and enable patients to share their health histories on command. 

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Imagine turning to your iPhone for all your health and medical information — every doctor's visit, lab test result, prescription and other health information, all available in a snapshot on your phone and shared with your doctor on command. No more logging into hospital websites or having to call your previous doctor to get them to forward all that information to your new one. Apple is working on making that scenario a reality. CNBC has learned that a secretive team within Apple's growing health unit has been in talks with developers, hospitals and other industry groups about bringing clinical data, such as detailed lab results and allergy lists, to the iPhone, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the team. And from there, users could choose to share it with third parties, like hospitals and health developers. One of the people said Apple is looking at start-ups in the cloud hosting space about potential acquisitions that might fit into this plan.

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Essentially, Apple would be trying to re-create what it did with music — replacing CDs and scattered MP3s with a centralized management system in iTunes and the iPod — in the similarly fragmented and complicated landscape for health data. "If Apple is serious about this, it would be a big f---ing deal," said Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator of Health IT for the Department of Health and Human Services and the founder of a start-up called Aledade. Such a move would represent a deviation in strategy from Apple's previous efforts in health care, the people said, which have focused on fitness and wellness. Apple's HealthKit, for instance, is primarily used to store things like step counting and sleep. There's also a feature called "health records," which includes the option to import documents that include summaries of care, but that is a limited snapshot of medical information. A huge problem

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