Survey Finds 78% of Patients Satisfied With Apple Health Records at UC San Diego Hospital

UC San Diego Health recently sent an online survey to its first 425 patients who activated Apple Health Records in 2018, and among 132 respondents, 78 percent indicated that they were "satisfied with using the feature."

health records ios 11
96 percent of respondents said they could "easily connect their mobile devices to the platform," and 90 percent said the "smartphone solution improved their understanding of their own health, facilitated conversations with their clinicians, or improved sharing of personal health information with friends and family."

The survey results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week by doctors at UC San Diego Health, one of the first hospitals and clinics to make Apple Health Records available to its patients.

Apple introduced the Health Records feature in iOS 11.3 in March 2018, allowing patients to view their medical records from multiple participating hospitals and clinics directly in the Health app on the iPhone, including allergies, vital signs, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, and procedures.

The journal submission cautions that, as with many new products and solutions, such enthusiasm is common from early adopters. The platform will need to "prove that it is useful, sustainable, scalable, and actually improves health outcomes," according to Christian Dameff, MD, UC San Diego Health.

As noted by CNBC's Christina Farr, hospitals have historically faced "major challenges" with getting patients to use electronic medical records because the technology "tends to be poorly designed and hard to use."

UC San Diego Health doctors believe three key developments may contribute to the success of Apple Health Records compared to earlier efforts like Google Health in 2008, including the ubiquity of mobile technology, the maturation of health data communications standards, and the widespread use of App Stores.

More than 100 institutions now support Apple Health Records in the United States, including Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and Apple reportedly hopes to add the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a partner as well, a move that would provide veterans with access to the feature.

Health records are stored in the Health Data tab of the Health app on iOS 11.3 and later.

Popular Stories

Beyond iPhone 13 Better Triad

Apple's 20th Anniversary iPhone May Finally Go All Screen

Tuesday April 15, 2025 6:31 am PDT by
Apple is preparing a "bold" new iPhone Pro model for the iPhone's 20th anniversary in 2027, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. As part of what's being described as a "major shake-up," Apple is said to be developing a design that makes more extensive use of glass – and this could point directly to the display itself. Here's the case for Apple releasing a truly all-screen iPhone with no...
maxresdefault

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Sunday April 13, 2025 7:52 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and ...
CarPlay Hero

Apple Releases Wireless CarPlay Fix

Wednesday April 16, 2025 11:28 am PDT by
If you have been experiencing issues with wireless CarPlay in your vehicle lately, it was likely due to a software bug that has now been fixed. Apple released iOS 18.4.1 today, and the update's release notes say it "addresses a rare issue that prevents wireless CarPlay connection in certain vehicles." If wireless CarPlay was acting up for you, updating your iPhone to iOS 18.4.1 should...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Tuesday April 15, 2025 7:37 am PDT by
The first iOS 19 beta is less than two months away, and there are already a handful of new features that are expected with the update. Apple should release the first iOS 19 beta to developers immediately following the WWDC 2025 keynote, which is scheduled for Monday, June 9. Following beta testing, the update should be released to the general public in September. Below, we recap the key...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
Apple 2025 Thumb 1

10 Products Still Coming From Apple in 2025

Friday April 11, 2025 4:14 pm PDT by
Apple may have updated several iPads and Macs late last year and early this year, but there are still multiple new devices that we're looking forward to seeing in 2025. Most will come in September or October, but there could be a few surprises before then. We've rounded up a list of everything that we're still waiting to see from Apple in 2025. iPhone 17, 17 Air, and 17 Pro - We get...
iOS 18

Apple Releases iOS 18.4.1 With Bug Fixes

Wednesday April 16, 2025 10:11 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4.1 and iPadOS 18.4.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that came out last September. iOS 18.4.1 and iPadOS 18.4.1 come two weeks after the launch of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. There have been complaints about ...
iPhone 6s MacRumors YouTube

Apple Says These Products Are Now Vintage

Tuesday April 15, 2025 9:53 am PDT by
Apple today updated its vintage products list to add the 2018 Mac mini and the iPhone 6s, devices that will get more limited service and repairs now that they are considered vintage. The iPhone 6s initially launched in 2015, but Apple kept it around as a low-cost device until 2018, which is why it is only now being added to the vintage list. The iPhone 6s had Apple's A9 chip, and it was...

Top Rated Comments

jimthing Avatar
82 months ago
Get back to us when public institutions like the NHS here in the UK support it, where virtually every citizen has a record (all 65m of us).
Then it'll be worth patting themselves on the back. Not this.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
koruki Avatar
82 months ago
lol wow look at all the whining comments already, they need to make a start somewhere guys. Rome wasn't built in a day
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
OverSpun Avatar
82 months ago
I only recently activated this feature but I think it works great. It is a lot more convenient than flipping through prints of medical labs.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PsykX Avatar
82 months ago
Below 90-95% of satisfaction will make it really hard to adopt in public hospitals IMO.
But we really, like really really have to use these technologies sooner than later, or the system will continue to crumble (in Quebec at least)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
82 months ago
Get back to us when public institutions like the NHS here in the UK support it, where virtually every citizen has a record (all 65m of us).
Then it'll be worth patting themselves on the back. Not this.
I think I missed who patted themselves on the back.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolbreeze Avatar
82 months ago
Yeah we’re gonna need a web portal for our Apple Health data. The Garmin portal is amazing.

I know Apple, Google, etc love locking people into upgrade (profit) treadmills, but platform lock shouldn’t be a thing for healthcare data.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)