SEATTLE: Apple has announced ResearchKit, an open-source platform that empowers researchers to design and administer app-based health research, which they can assemble quickly via a plug-and-play approach and without the need for a team of coders.
The innovation seeks to change the way disease research is done by allowing participants to remotely report symptoms using a variety of tests that can be administered through a smart phone — for example, asthmatics can breathe into devices that attach to their phones, Parkinson’s patients can perform a series of tests measuring motor skills, and chemotherapy patients can test cognition through journaling.
Because the researchers are capable of putting together hypotheses, creating studies, and building the apps themselves, there’s no limit to the kinds of research that can be done; already, more than 100 researchers have expressed interest in developing their own app-based studies…