iPad EHR Drchrono gears up for HealthKit

Drchrono bills itself as the "original mobile EHR built for the iPad." With that in mind, I decided to ask the company's co-founder and COO, Daniel Kivatinos for his thoughts on Apple's entry into the healthcare space with its new Health app and HealthKit development tool. Here are my questions and his replies:What is drchrono? How is it different and better than other EHRs?Drchrono was the first to develop a native EHR solution for the iPad and Google Glass. Our technology is disruptive in that we fuel the easiest, most-innovative patient care experience on the market today. Our platform has dramatically improved the patient point of care experience by allowing doctors to communicate face-to-face with patients (rather than behind a PC), improved the flow of information between doctors and patients, and reduced the time spent on charting and other historically time-intensive tasks.We have over 70,000 doctors and 3 million patients benefiting from our platform. That number continues to grow rapidly. We were voted the top EHR two years in a row by Blackbook Rankings, and recently joined the INC500.What does it mean that Apple itself is moving into health? What are the broader implications for the market?Apple has some of the best designers and engineers in the world, and having them put mindshare into healthcare is a big deal. Apple serves both business and consumers, but I think we’ll see the most evolution in consumer-facing technologies, namely those that make logging wellness data and taking action easier.What is HealthKit and why does it matter? How does it relate to the Health App in iOS8?HealthKit allows developers to plug into the “Health” app on iPhone. The iPhone “Health” app connects medical hardware and software alike, pulling in data from many sources. For example when an individual has an iPhone that connects to FDA approved devices such as blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, fertility monitors and glucose meter, the “Health” app can pull that data in if the person wants.Drchrono just announced the launch of OnPatient, your personal health record platform. What is it and how does it tie in with HealthKit?OnPatient allows patients to book appointments, fill-out forms, message their doctors and most importantly have access to their medical records at their fingertips. Our most recent integration with HealthKit lets patients import their wellness data (via Health) directly into OnPatient. Best of all, patients can share that wellness data in an easy-to-digest format directly with their doctors.PHRs have never really caught on. What’s different about this new attempt?People love their phones. They like being able to access banking, their social networks, email, and more in one place. Health information is no different. In the past, PHR’s generally required patients to enter their health data on the web manually. This took plenty of work…and busy people didn’t have the time to spend on data entry.Our solution pulls in data from doctors, and now, information from Health…all without the patient manually entering a single piece of data.How will it impact physician practice and specifically patient visits?Our EHR impacts physicians every day by making their --and this will sound clichéd-- lives easier. They have access to their entire practice’s data in one place, their iPad or laptop. Doctors can easily access patient data on the go, and as a result, provide better service to their patients.Patients will have immediate access to their medical records, prescriptions, and now wellness data.Does my doctor have to be using drchrono for a patient to use onpatient? If so, how do you overcome that barrier?With this initial release, yes, but you can have your physician join Drchrono for free at your request.The Apple Watch was announced but not yet released. What do you think of it? What will its rollout look like?I am very excited about Apple Watch. It will be a great way to track more health data like heartbeat and steps. Doctors will be able to use the Watch in their practices: for example, to see a list of patients coming in for the day.Big players, especially Epic, are gathering up more and more of the total EHR market. Is there room for a company like yours or is the battle hopeless?Epic is going after a different market, they are going after hospitals. drchrono focuses is on smaller offices with one to 20 physicians.---By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams of the Health Business Group