PHILADELPHIA: Medical research can be crucial to finding treatments and cures — but sometimes, finding the right research subject is a major challenge.
But now, new software like Apple’s ResearchKit have allowed potential medical research subjects to participate in studies on the go — making the process simple and even entertaining.
“ResearchKit is a tool that Apple made available to us academic institutions that allows the collection of information from potential research subjects or patients,” Paul Testa, Chief Medical Information Officer at NYU Langone Medical Center, said.
The software facilitates the creation of various medical research apps.
Testa says the tool has been revolutionary.
“Within a matter of the first few weeks of us having the app in the Apple app store we had 700 downloads,” Testa said. “That level of particupation would have taken many years.”
Testing patients with the new technology is also much easier.