
ResearchKit: A software framework designed to benefit medical research - brbcoding
http://www.apple.com/researchkit/
======
dduugg
Great job transitioning from buying Coke using Apple Pay to managing diabetes
in ResearchKit. Vertical integration at its finest.

~~~
stock_toaster
Coke also sells water. Pretty funny though regardless.

~~~
wahsd
Based on my rough calculations, at a 1,333,333% markup.

[http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/02/24/Nestle-Pays-Nothing-
to-...](http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/02/24/Nestle-Pays-Nothing-to-Bottle-
Water/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=240215)

~~~
brandonmenc
Intel is marking up sand at a couple orders of magnitude greater than this.

~~~
sjwright
I wonder how much Intel pays for its sand.

~~~
simonh
Silicon ingots run to about $70-$200/kg according to Alibaba. I think I read
that Intel buys their silicon from a specialist supplier rather than grow
their own ingots.

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chatmasta
This is probably the coolest announcement from the event, at least from the
perspective of societal benefits.

Medical research faces a real challenge of selection bias. Survey respondents
and study participants largely come from two groups: 1) undergrads responding
to a campus flyer, and 2) local university-town residents looking to make
extra money. Obviously this means respondents are geographically homogenous,
and in many cases socioeconomically homogenous as well. Enabling a wider reach
for researchers will not only increase sample size, but also eliminate
selection bias. This is a very, very good thing.

Also, now research isn't limited to only university researchers.

I wonder if the plan is to allow participants to earn credits on apple pay.

~~~
minthd
We've had similar stuff like ResearchKit in existence for quite long. One of
the most popular of such sites is patientslikeme.com .It and others did a
great job around this, but usage is relatively rare.

The hard thing about such sites is:how do you incentivize people to contribute
really personal information and do so on a regular basis(even if said action
takes a relatively long time) ?

So i wonder what can Apple do to make this activity common, that other
companies couldn't do ? How will they achieve this ?

~~~
Osmium
> So i wonder what can Apple do to make this activity common, that other
> companies couldn't do ? How will they achieve this ?

A large marketing budget helps, e.g. see the video they launched with. Making
it easy to use and frictionless would also help (no need to log into the
website, no need to figure out how to sign a PDF or download a consent form or
whatever the normal user flow is).

What concerns me is people gaming the apps; downloading them and filling them
with fake data just to be malicious. You fix one problem and introduce
another...

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tomkinstinch
The page is up for ResearchKit:

[http://www.apple.com/researchkit/](http://www.apple.com/researchkit/)

The Apple Watch would likely be an ideal tool to improve prescription
compliance in older patients. Perfect for issuing reminders about time and
dosage (and for getting a confirmation that the task has been completed).

~~~
robbiep
They just have to remember to recharge it daily

~~~
feld
Yeah, this wouldn't work for my dad who has Parkinsons. The watch would be
dead and he'd still need reminders for pills...

------
nsxwolf
People rich enough to own iPhones is an interesting confounding variable for
health studies.

~~~
iamdanfox
Android compatibility looks feasible since the kit will be open source [1].
That should open up the ResearchKit demographic quite a bit!

[1]:
[https://developer.apple.com/researchkit/](https://developer.apple.com/researchkit/)

~~~
tomovo
Open? Like Facetime was supposed to be?

~~~
Alphasite_
Why does this one keep getting trotted out, lets assume unless they get sued
we're fine.

------
fitzwatermellow
iTunes links to the first five Apple ResearchKit apps:

Asthma Health by Mount Sinai

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asthma-health-by-mount-
sinai...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/asthma-health-by-mount-
sinai/id972625668?mt=8)

Share the Journey by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Penn Medicine, UCLA’s
Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Sage Bionetworks

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/share-the-
journey/id97218060...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/share-the-
journey/id972180604?mt=8)

Parkinson mPower study app by Sage Bionetworks, University of Rochester,
Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for
Parkinson’s Research

[https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftw...](https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=972191200&mt=8&ls=1)

GlucoSuccess by Mass General

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glucosuccess/id972143976?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glucosuccess/id972143976?mt=8)

My Heart Counts by Stanford Medicine

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myheart-
counts/id972189947?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myheart-
counts/id972189947?mt=8)

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aarondf
As a Type 1 diabetic, I can't wait to see what happens next. Well done Tim!

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mhomde
Open Source, wow that was unexpected from Apple

~~~
duaneb
It's calculated. Reception would be distinctly negative if something as
crucial as health research were closed source—here, the utility is in the
transparency as well as apple's traditional offers of usability and
reliability.

~~~
a_c_s
What's the point about speculating about motivation? Whether motivated by
altruism or calculated strategy, who cares?

These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather than
substantive commentary.

~~~
duaneb
> These kinds of discussions tend to devolve into platform bickering rather
> than substantive commentary.

True. However, occasionally (I at least) learn something new from these
conversations.

------
ThomPete
This to me if it's even close to the promise it has is the real news of that
event. The Watch will of course help the data collection.

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detaro
Summary for those of us who don't have access to a mac right now?

~~~
revscat
It is an open-source framework allowing medical researchers and professionals
to interact directly with patients via iOS applications. Patients will be able
to perform tests, fill out questionnaires, etc., and have the results sent
directly to researchers.

------
jrapdx3
Sure, open-source is a good thing. I strongly support OSS and as much as
possible run systems at work using FreeBSD, Linux, etc.

I've worked in medical practice (and research) for a long time. Considering
the vital importance of transactional transparency in carrying out the mission
of these fields, as useful as open source is generally, I think the impact in
medicine is even greater.

But open source is only part of it, _open platform_ is at least as important.
I guess I'm not a very trusting soul. Frankly, I don't believe Apple is going
to do anything primarily for _our_ good. Rather to my senses the announcement
has the flavor of an attempt to gain a toehold or increase market share in the
big money research domain.

If Apple (or other player) truly wants to generously donate to the public
cause, that's wonderful. Then why not support efforts to develop open source,
cross-platform apps, assuring all medical research can benefit? Not directed
only or in particular at Apple, it's an issue I've raised whenever I have the
chance: open source/platform agnostic development can save money and produce
more reliable and secure systems.

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GoodOldNe
As someone about to start a medical residency in the Bay Area who is
interested in developing projects to work on a research platform like this,
could the HN braintrust recommend a resource for learning the basics of
whatever developer tools or frameworks that would be required to work with
ResearchKit?

------
voronoff
Research works best when the subjects of long term studies can see and react
to the data they are generating in real time. Anti-blind trials are the
future. /s

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albertsun
Here's the developer overview:

[https://developer.apple.com/researchkit/researchkit-
technica...](https://developer.apple.com/researchkit/researchkit-technical-
overview.pdf)

It appears to mostly be an iOS UI toolkit of sorts for easing the creation of
individual apps to collect research data. The hard work must still be done by
each individual research project.

------
somberi
Asking to learn.

How is this better an an online polling software - like surveymonkey or
polldaddy?

From reading the press release, it seems like it is a data collection software
from patients. Is there more to it?

~~~
ishansharma
I think the benefit is that the iPhone has sensors that can collect lots of
data. For example, the Perkinson's(?) app makes you tap on two targets quickly
and say "aaaaa" for long and analyzes the ups and downs in vocal cords using
the mic.

Patients can't track all this by themselves. Plus, it will automatically send
it to researchers. Much easier than making someone enter information on
surveymonkey or polldaddy.

------
cafebeen
There's certainly going to be a selection bias, as others have said. I think
the most exciting opportunity though is for very fine grained and longitudinal
studies.

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FrojoS
Anyone here who has already experience with it? Apparently a handful of
hospitals and universities got early access.

~~~
tomschlick
They would most likely be under strict NDA until the public release.

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joelmbell
This is so awesome. If this takes off, medical advancements in the next 10
years are going to be astronomical.

~~~
feld
The FDA has to get more efficient, too

~~~
seehafer
Beyond being more efficient, they need to have a shift in thinking as to what
constitutes a quality SW development process. Example: as of right now, they
still think that a waterfall process is the only process that is "correct".

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spike021
Wasn't FaceTime supposed to be an open-sourced framework/protocol?

~~~
csixty4
That was before VirnetX sued them for $708 million for patent violations,
reduced to $368.2 by the judge. To avoid having to license the patents in
question, Apple re-architected FaceTime so it's no longer peer-to-peer and
instead routes everything through central servers.

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dlu
This makes gets unreasonably excited. Love that it is open-sourced

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mrfusion
What is it?

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alexbel
"Sorry, your browser doesn't support our live video stream" Firefox 36.0

~~~
iNate2000
That's the reality-distortion field. It _should_ say, "Sorry, our live video
stream doesn't support your browser."

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dataker
The ultimate example that the cure of X also come from programmers, not solely
doctors.

