Apple rolls out new Health Records features with 39 hospitals joining at launch

Mar. 30, 2018 04:50AM EST

Apple has expanded the way its iOS users can tap into health records — and share that information with their doctor as well.

Want to see the results of you last Vitamin D test? Show the date of your last tetanus vaccine to someone in the ER? If your doctor is aligned to one of 39 hospitals in the U.S. including Cedars-Sinai, Johns Hopkins Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, you'll be able to open up the Health app on your iPhone, click Health Records and see that information right there.

Health Records are one of the features inside the Apple Health app GearBrain

The move is hardly a surprise for Apple, which has been working heavily in the health space for years. Its Health app already links up to data from multiple devices, letting you track calories, sleeping patterns, and workout from one location. The Apple Watch is even being used in medical studies to pick up heart irregularities — and an Apple Watch band has been developed that is actually a Food and Drug Administration approved medical device, used to detect atrial fibrillation (AFib) in wearers.

Apple also recently announced plans to build two healthcare centers for its own employees called AC Wellness, with the first opening its doors this spring.

But now, iPhone users can quickly show doctors their collected medical history, and even get notifications when new details have been added: think your cholesterol level and even what medications you're on — which is important when one prescription can impact how another works.

Patients can access medical records from several hospitals and clinics they visited in the past even if they've traveled across the country from Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles to NYU Langone.Apple

Some hospitals and patients, including NYU Langone, have been beta testing the feature for some time. The new features in Health app are available for anyone using iOS 11.3 and include allergies, clinical visits, immunization records, lab results, medications, procedures and also any diagnosed condition someone may have from heart disease to high blood pressure.

The medical information is protected on the patient side by their iPhone password — which means if someone hacks into your device, they can see your health details. Apple says that any data sent from a health institution to a patient's Apple device, and also stored on Apple's iCloud, it is encrypted when transferred and also when stored.

The list of hospitals that are currently working with Apple are listed below:

Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States

• AtlantiCare

• Geisinger Health System

• Johns Hopkins Medicine

• LifeBridge Health

• NYU Langone Health

• Partners HealthCare

• Penn Medicine

• Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Inc.

• Valley Medical Group P.C.

• Yale New Haven Health and Yale Medicine

Midwest

• Cerner Healthe Clinic

• CoxHealth

• Mosaic Life Care

• Nebraska Methodist Health System

• OhioHealth

• Rush University Medical Center

• Southwest General Health Center

• Truman Medical Centers

• The University of Chicago Medicine

South

• Adventist Health System

• BayCare Health System

• The Duke University Health System

• MedStar Health

• Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare

• Mission Health

• Ochsner Health System

• Ortho Virginia

• TSAOG Orthopaedics

• UNC Health Care

• Vanderbilt University Medical Center

• WVU Medicine

West

• Cedars-Sinai

• Dignity Health

• Eisenhower Health

• Providence St. Joseph Health

• Scripps Health

• Stanford Medicine

• UC Irvine Health

• UC San Diego Health