Mobile-Based ResearchKit Signals Bigger Health-Care Vertical Channel Opportunities

Apple last week released ResearchKit, an open-source software framework that facilitates app development for researchers hoping to collect data on mobile devices.

Partners think that this research-based framework represents the health-care market's deeper adoption of technology, and will open further opportunities for the channel.

"I think that [ResearchKit] is a huge development for the health-care research community to be able to get more patients in their studies," said Steven Vicinanza, CEO of Atlanta-based MSP BlueWave Computing, an Apple partner and No. 494 on CRN's 2014 Solution Provider 500 list. "This framework will leverage the millions of iPhone users who could potentially participate with apps that the medical community can develop."

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ResearchKit allows developers to create apps for tracking patients and collecting invaluable data for the research of various health disorders. Well-known organizations like Mount Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have already jumped on board to develop apps for research specifically related to Parkinson's disease, asthma, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently shared his vision for the potential of Appleā€™s health-tracking technology in a surprise interview with Jim Cramer on the 10th anniversary special of his show "Mad Money" on CNBC Thursday.

"I think health may be the biggest [frontier] of all," Cook told Cramer over the phone. "For years, people have depended on somebody else to determine their health, and now these devices, in essence, empower people to manage and track their own health and fitness. I think that market is probably significantly underestimated."

The platform, which will launch in April, will be embedded in privacy measures, stressed Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, during the framework's announcement last week. Williams stressed that users will have control over who sees their data, and Apple itself won't be able to view personal medical information.

Partners attribute this use of mobile devices in research to a rapidly technologically developing health-care vertical containing ample opportunities for solution providers to help medical centers organize, manage and secure data through offering consulting services and cloud-computing platforms.

"The broader opportunity for VARs is in medical practices, as health-care companies are seeing huge changes in their business models, and practices are struggling to keep up with the changes ... so one of the things that I think is important is how solution providers can help hospitals be more efficient," said Vicinanza. "Smaller companies have gone from recording data on paper to electronic, and now are working with a hybrid of cloud computing and mobile. It's a lot to assimilate and creates a big opportunity for the channel."

Vicinanza, whose company works primarily with hospitals and large medical practices, said he provides a full range of compliant IT services, in addition to a cloud-computing platform for the health-care vertical segment.

Cloud computing is an essential need for health-care markets that need help with data management, as well as backup and recovery, said Vicinanza.

Also important are security platform solutions, especially as hospitals struggle to balance the increasing variety of devices in the workplace with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliancy regulations, and safeguard private patient data.

"I think that security is a big buzzword, and there's no one way for businesses to secure themselves," said Reagan Roney, vice president of business development at Solvere One, a Sterling, Va.-based Apple partner specializing in the health-care vertical. "Security in the health-care vertical opens opportunities for managed security as a service and training employees, as well as other functions."

In the future, solution providers think that the opportunities in the health-care vertical will grow exponentially as technology plays a larger part in the medical world.

"As the health-care market grows, more systems will need a stronger arm in technology, and that will create incentive to put faith in solution providers like ourselves. I don't think that window will close any time soon," said Roney.

Ramin Edmond contributed to this article.

PUBLISHED MARCH 17, 2015