Note: CommonHealth integration to UCSF’s electronic health record (EHR) is being supported and funded by CTSI's Research Technology program. This project will also demonstrate initial use of EHR data for smartphone-based study recruitment.
NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2019 via PRNewswire - Cornell Tech, UC San Francisco (UCSF), Sage Bionetworks, Open mHealth and The Commons Project are collaborating to develop CommonHealth, an open-source, non-profit public service designed to make it easy and secure for people to collect their electronic health record data and share it with health apps and partners that have demonstrated their trustworthiness. CommonHealth will leverage data interoperability standards, including HL7 FHIR to offer functionality analogous to Apple Health™ to users of Android™ phones.
"Apple has shown real leadership and moved the industry forward by enabling patient access to their health information. Now CommonHealth is significantly expanding the number of people who can benefit from easy electronic access to their health records," said JP Pollak, the CommonHealth product lead, Senior Researcher in Residence at Cornell Tech and Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The personal health data aggregated through CommonHealth may also be used to improve digital therapeutics and diagnostics, biomedical research, and patient care, as described by UCSF Professor of Medicine Ida Sim in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
To ensure patient privacy and promote trust, the CommonHealth partners are implementing a robust governance model that will review and approve all apps and partners connecting to CommonHealth.
"UCSF is committed to using technology to improve care for all of our patients," said Russ Cucina, Chief Health Information Officer for UCSF Health. "The CommonHealth project will ensure that more of our patients have access to their health information, and that they can share it responsibly with the growing health technology sector."
"The upcoming launch of CommonHealth will unlock a wealth of opportunities for the developer and research communities, helping them to conduct more inclusive studies and deliver personal health management tools," said Deborah Estrin, Associate Dean for Impact at Cornell Tech and co-founder of Open mHealth.
CommonHealth is being piloted at UCSF and select academic medical centers and health systems. Read full press release here
Related press article via HealthcareIT News
Related article in NEJM Review by Ida Sim, CTSI co-director of Informatics and Research Innovation (IRI) program:
Mobile Devices and Health