WELL Health Technologies Corp.
(WELL-T) C$7.10
Apple Integration Enables Patient Access to Their Health Data Event
WELL announced the rollout of Health Records on iPhone, which allows patients to securely view and store their available medical records on their iPhone or iPod touch.
Impact: NEUTRAL
Empowering patients with access to their health data. iPhone and iPod touch users that are patients of physicians using OSCAR Pro EMR and/or the Tia Health virtual care service may now be able to securely view and store their available medical records from multiple providers directly in Apple's Health app via the YourCare patient portal.
Through a direct, encrypted connection, patients can access data including allergies, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, procedures, and vitals and also receive notifications when their data is updated via the Health Records feature in Apple's health app. Each medical clinic must explicitly opt in and configure the service for it to be available to their patients.
In an exclusive club in Canada. Although Apple's Health app has integrated with over 600 hospitals and clinics in the U.S., WELL is just one of four such partners in Canada and the first among its Canadian EMR and telehealth peers.
While we do not believe there will be a significant direct financial benefit to WELL from this new offering (e.g., licensing/subscription fees), we believe this partnership does help increase the value of its EMR and telehealth platform. Physicians in WELL's clinics and others using its EMR and/or telehealth solutions could benefit by retaining and attracting patients that want easy and secure access to their medical data to better help them proactively manage their health.
Potential COVID-19 vaccine passport? Although COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada to date have (primarily) been done outside of medical clinics, should (annual) vaccinations be required going forward, we believe medical clinics could play a role, similar to administering flu shots. Also, we believe patients could have their vaccination records updated in OSCAR Pro for COVID-19 vaccinations received elsewhere. Accordingly, the integration of WELL's OSCAR Pro EMR with Apple's Health app would allow COVID-19 vaccination data recorded in OSCAR Pro to be accessible in the Health app and used by the patient as proof of vaccination.