Now that Apple has said its eagerly awaited HealthKit is ready to use, two insurers are wasting no time posting apps integrated with Apple's software to the App Store.
Humana and the Health Care Service Corporation, in fact, are trying to both test new wellness ideas and attract tech-savvy members by running their own apps in conjunction with Apple’s HealthKit, the platform for iOS users to consolidate all their health data.
Calling Apple’s new healthcare products “a significant step” for the “quantified self,” Humana CEO Bruce Broussard said Humana has fully integrated its mobile and web-based wellness app, HumanaVitality, with Apple’s HealthKit.
Humana recently launched its Vitality app as a digital extension of wellness programs in the hopes of engaging members through activity and healthy eating goals, prevention and rewards. Integrated with HealthKit, members using the Apple iOS version of the Vitality app can upload data on activity and fitness and earn points for things like cash gift cards, music downloads and discounts on outdoors gear.
“The simple, innovative and easy-to-use design of the Apple Health app makes it easier for these Humana members to collectively manage their fitness data so they can improve their health,” said Broussard. “As more consumers use Apple Health, the platform can also help the healthcare industry leverage the power of technology to further transform the consumer health experience."
Multi-state Blues insurer HCSC is also offering its members a new health HealthKit-compatible app, dubbed Centered, that tracks activity and diet along with mindfulness and meditation — with the end goal of reducing stress, a sometimes overlooked contributor to chronic disease and health problems.
HCSC, the parent of Blue Cross insurers in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, describes Centered as a “holistic approach to stress management.”
Centered lets users track daily physical activity and receive guidance or set goals for stress management and wellness, such as for walking more often or engaging in daily meditation exercises.
“As the user makes progress toward their established activity and meditation goals, the two activities, represented as circles, converge to form a ‘centered circle,’ signaling completion of the weekly goal,” the company said.
Kristin Conley, vice president of consumer lifecycle management at HCSC, said that in recent years gamification has succeeded at encouraging people to change behaviors and stay engaged in programs improving their own health.
“Centered employs game mechanics to encourage members to make the connection between exercise and stress management,” she added.
Centered is available for iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus models; Humana's Vitality Apps runs on both Android and iOS version 7.0 or later.
Looking to the future, many mobile health vendors, insurers, wellness companies and providers may end up trying to serve iPhone users — perhaps the highest end of the consumer smartphone market — with more advanced personal health applications that are accessed and connected through HealthKit.
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