Dive Brief:
- Though it has just hit the market, two health insurers have already posted apps integrated with Apple's HealthKit software to the App Store.
- One insurer getting into the HealthKit game is Humana, which has completely integrated its mobile and web-based wellness program, HumanaVitality, with Apple's new platform. Members using the HealthKit-enabled version of the Vitality app can upload data on activity and fitness to earn points for things like cash gift cards and music downloads.
- Also joining the HealthKit race is multistate Blues payer Health Care Service Corporation. It is offering members a HealthKit-compatible app, known as Centered, which tracks activity and diet along with mindfulness and meditation in an effort to reduce stress.
Dive Insight:
There's little doubt that payers and employers both will find HealthKit interesting, as its design can be used to help further wellness goals for consumers that both share. It's also likely that mobile health vendors will experiment with HealthKit in an effort to serve the high-end iPhone user market. HealthKit, in other words, is likely to enjoy a day in the sun as a wide variety of stakeholders see what the data merging functions HealthKit offers can really produce.
That being said, what isn't being discussed much is that wellness programs created by employers and insurers don't have a great track record for actually improving consumers' health. At minimum, it can take years before a wellness program actually produces results that save money or appreciably improve consumer health by concrete measures. If HealthKit's main use turns out to be as a platform for wellness programs, it may not have much of a future.