Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), presented in his keynote "springforward" yesterday, March 9 a research tool that many have overlooked. It's one of these things that Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), presents and few know what it really is for, but that makes others think about how things will be in the future. I explain.
Big Data, medical research and Apple
El Big Data, massive data managementhas been with us for more or less 30 years. This technology allows, among other things, that when you have a spelling doubt you can go to Google and only by typing the word in the search engine will it tell you if it is well or badly written, that's because Google it has the largest text database in existence. Medicine wants to be able to do this and yesterday Apple gave him a great tool in order to start accumulating large amounts of data and thus be able to better understand the symptoms, diseases and the patients themselves. An example, how do we know what is the normal weight of a child at birth? Because a huge number of newborn weights have been extrapolated to a Gaussian bell and an accurate graph of what is normal and what is not normal has been obtained.
El ResearchKit allows researchers to accumulate this vast amount of data they need to create many patterns and standards that are still unknown. In the words of Eduardo Sánchez, doctor of the prestigious American Heart Association (AHA): «Numbers are everything. The more people contribute their data, the larger the number, the more faithful the representation of a population, and the more powerful the results. A research platform that allows large amounts of data to be collected and shared can only be good for medical research. "
ResearchKit solves two major problems
Today in medicine there are two problems with access to the data by researchers and Apple, using the ResearchKit, can solve it. The first is access to the patient, researchers recruit patients they have near their institutions and annoy them from time to time by making them go to hospitals and research centers for tests, interviews or evaluations of symptoms. What if this is not necessary, what is more, and if I could access the data of thousands of patients around the world and not just the few hundred that I have in my province? ResearchKit collects the data and sends it to the research institutions that collect it. This brings us to second problem: without my permission? Medical data is the data with the highest level of protection that exists under the laws on privacy and data protection. Apple has also thought about this, the data is not only not sent but it is the patient himself who has to authorize the shipment through what seems to be his signature, we will still have to wait to see what type of authorization the different applications request . On the other hand Apple, as it does with Apple Pay, has said that in no case can they access the data, they only act as transmitters of the same.
How does the iPhone fit into all of this?
The iPhone (and Apple Watch) become the entry point for data that are shared with medical research centers. For this they use 5 applications (in the future there will be many more, I have no doubt) that collect data from the sensors available to the equipment such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, barometer and also the microphone, the Health app or even surveys. These data can be collected over long periods of time and at intervals as frequent as one hour, so the amount of data generated will be as large as research centers need. The applications for now are only available in the North American App Store, but over time they will reach all the App Stores in the world. The five applications are:
Ashma Halth: This App is focused on knowing the asthma triggers. It allows participants to self-manage their asthma by areas, avoiding situations that may lead to exacerbating their symptoms. This personalized study of symptoms will allow researchers to precisely tailor treatments in the future. The application has been designed at Mount Sinai Hospital and Cornell Medical College.
mPower: This application is focused on research on Parkinson's disease and the variability of its symptoms. This application will allow the owner to mediate certain skills that are affected by the disease, it is one of the most worked applications. It allows evaluating aspects related to manual dexterity, balance, memory and stability while walking. This will allow researchers to know the evolution of the disease and in turn will allow the owners of the application to know their own signs and symptoms. This app is designed by the University of Rochester and Sage Bionetworks.
GlucoSuccess: This application is focused on patients suffering from diabetes. It will allow researchers to understand how various aspects of people's lives such as diet, physical activity or drugs can alter blood glucose levels. It also allows the patient to identify how their behaviors and habits affect their disease, allowing them to take a more active role in their treatment. This app is designed by Massachusetts General Hospital.
Share the Journey: This app focuses on the long-term effects of chemotherapy on women with breast cancer. The application allows you to easily collect detailed information about the energy levels, cognitive abilities, and mood of the patient after treatment. The objective is to gather information to know the quality of life of patients undergoing chemotherapy and to improve it in the future. App is designed by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Penn Medicin, and Sage Bionetworks.
My Heart Counts: Application is focused on evaluating cardiovascular risk factors. Through surveys and tasks, it helps researchers to more accurately assess how activity and lifestyle are related to the risk of heart attacks or strokes. The ultimate goal is to understand how to keep your heart and blood vessels healthy. This app is designed by the Stanford and Oxford medical schools.
The ResearchKit will be an open source tool, something unusual in Apple, so any researcher who wants to design an application to collect data can access it without having to pay for it. But beware, it does not mean that the software that Apple makes available to medical centers can be modified, that will have to be seen.
