First Thoughts on ResearchKit
I want to pen down some thoughts before ResearchKit is available for development and I get caught up in the technical possibilites vs. the business possibilities.
In Apple's Spring Forward event earlier this week, Apple's VP of Operation Jeff Williams told us ResearchKit addresses three major problems with medical research:
Distribution: Jeff opened with a slide titled "Limited participation".
Good data: Jeff's second slide was "Subjective data" and his third was "Infrequent data".
Being heard as a patient: "One-way communication" is the "most significant challenge", said Jeff.
From the presentation, we were to suss out ResearchKit solves these problems by bringing two major forces to bear:
Distribution: Apple has sold 700 million iPhones to date.
Tools: The ResearchKit framework itself, along with Xcode, let reseachers easily create apps.
Let's Talk About Distribution
Jeff opened with this, so let's assume by the Laws of Good Presentations this is actually the biggest problem they're aiming to address.
I tweeted criticism of Apple not tackling distribution more directly, despite placing heavy weight on it as a problem. App Store discovery has long since been broken, so simply being in the App Store is not a realistic expectation of increased distribution. It is possible, of course, that a community was simply waiting for this to exist in the App Store, and now that they have their toolset researchers will see big gains in participants. But Apple didn't mention that nor have we seen evidence of that so far.
I have come around a bit to understanding that distribution, while not solved, is at least improved simply by Apple putting its weight behind research with a framework and, more importantly, its own section on the App Store. Though it's unclear how much so it's improved.
Kathryn Shmitz PhD, of Penn Medicine, mentioned in the ResearchKit video she sent 60,000 letters to survey candidates and ended up with 305 participants. That's 0.5%, as in half of one percent—not good. If we assume Apple returned the same percentage of its 700,000,000 base, that's 3,500,000 participants. That math is specious but the point stands: Apple's massive reach alone is distribution for researchers. It's 0 to 60, with the 0 being quite fair.
Michelle Fay Cortez and Caroline Chen, reporting for Bloomberg, mentioned ResearchKit's traction so far:
Stanford University researchers were stunned when they awoke Tuesday to find that 11,000 people had signed up for a cardiovascular study using Apple Inc.’s ResearchKit, less than 24 hours after the iPhone tool was introduced.
This is great news. However, all apps get a boost when they first launch to fanfare; 14 days to restore normality is a safe assumption. On top of that, ResearchKit is currently featured in the top carousel of the App Store's main view. What I'm saying is: we're not seeing true traction yet. Let's check in again in 60 and 90 days when things have died down.
I've thought about what else Apple could do to augment distribution, because I believe in offering up solutions when you point out problems, and I'm unsure. What I imagine the medical research community would most love, or at least the data scientists, would be for Apple to add some type of iOS-level opt-in feature: "Let me know of relevant new medical research opportunities". I do not want this, at least not until Health and HealthKit are more mature. It feels unnatural for the OS to do it vs. an app. Interestingly, this could a strategic area for Android's health intitiative where they could move ahead of Apple, given Android's most passionate userbase is more comfortable with handing over their data.
There are already over 900 incredible apps that help you manage and track your health and fitness.
Max Little, PhD, Aston University, in the ResearchKit video:
We're talking about trying to change the scale of the amount of data you can collect, going from data that might be collected say once every 3 months to data let's say once every second.
Mike O'Reilly MD, VP Medical Technologies, Apple, also in the video:
ResearchKit will put people at the center of research, giving people the insights and the tools they need to live better and healthier lives.
Apple is looking to making a broad impact on the future of human health. We've already seen this with HealthKit. I have no doubt they are well-meaning. I think Apple's thinking is very hopeful, and they're aware of that.
I also think ResearchKit can work, and probably will because of Apple's track record.
While Apple itself is matured, ResearchKit is still very young. Not only that, healthcare is a beast with a billion backs. Just because Apple has hundreds-million-customer reach does not mean the seeds of ResearchKit's dominant future have yet been sewn.
There's a line of thinking in tech that through the data lies the truth; that, along with individuals sussing out insights from data, more data is better. I generally subscribe to this. The first five ResearchKit-enabled apps Apple built are representations of exactly that. What we need now, and what I'd like to see, is more ResearchKit apps from the community. ResearchKit's future depends on it.
The cynical side of me expects to see few apps from healthcare proper, or at least not ones as good as those Apple has launched, because of its bloated, slow-moving self. The optimistic side of me expects to see many more, wonderfully innovative apps from non-traditional healthcare like startups and independent researchers. It would be great to see both sides flourish, for Apple, and for us.
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