Apple to attend (by phone) nonpartisan Carin Alliance meeting on health care records

Apple will be represented by phone at a meeting designed to help push through a policy change to let consumers access their data “without further delay,” reports CNBC. 

The nonpartisan Carin Alliance, which describes its focus as “advancing consumer-directed exchange in health care,” posted the attendee list and talking points on its website on Friday. More than 40 people representing some of the biggest companies in the industry are planning to attend, either in person or by phone, according to the list.

“Our vision is to rapidly advance the ability for consumers and their authorized caregivers to easily get, use, and share their digital health information when, where, and how they want to achieve their goals, according to the Carin Alliance website. “Specifically, we are promoting the ability for consumers and their authorized caregivers to gain digital access to their health information via non-proprietary application programming interfaces or APIs [application programming interfaces]. We envision a future where any consumer can choose any application to retrieve both their complete health record and their complete coverage information from any provider or plan in the country.”

Consumer-directed exchange occurs when a consumer or an authorized caregiver invokes their HIPAA Individual Right of Access and requests their digital health information from a HIPAA covered entity (CE) via an application or other third-party data steward.

In January 2028 Apple introduced what it described as a “significant update” to the Health app, debuting a feature for customers to see their medical records on their iPhone. The Health Records section within the Health app brings together hospitals, clinics and the existing Health app to make it easy for consumers to see their available medical data from multiple providers whenever they choose.