Apple has just announced that the ResearchKit is now available to medical researchers. Just what is the ResearchKit, anyway? It happens to be a software framework that has been specially designed for medical and health research, with hope that it will be able to assist the likes of doctors, scientists and other researchers gather data in a more frequent and more accurate manner from participants with the help of mobile devices.
The first research apps that were developed using ResearchKit study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, where it has managed to enrol more than 60,000 iPhone users in a matter of a few weeks of being available on the App Store. Well, there does not look as though much waiting needs to be done now, as medical researchers worldwide will now be able to make use of the ResearchKit in order to develop their very own apps, while developers too, can do their bit and contribute new research modules to the open source framework.
Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations, shared, “We are delighted and encouraged by the response to ResearchKit from the medical and research community and the participants contributing to medical research. Studies that historically attracted a few hundred participants are now attracting participants in the tens of thousands. Medical researchers all over the world are actively exploring how ResearchKit can help them study even more diseases, and we believe the impact on global understanding of health and wellness will be profound.” [Press Release]
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