Managed health care firm Humana has integrated Apple's HealthKit platform into its HumanaVitality app, allowing users to score points that can be redeemed for fitness equipment and other rewards.
Finally debugged and ready to go, Apple's HealthKit application programming interface (API) was designed to bring users biometrics and activity into a comprehensive and accredited report. Fitness apps, such as the HumanaVitality app, can leverage sensors on Apple products to direct user data into HealthKit.
With data such as blood pressure readings and weekly miles walked stored in HealthKit, users can share extensive reports on their health activity with caregivers and health care firms. As is typically the case with other fitness apps, the free HumanaVitality app can leverage HealthKit's support from both internal and external sensors to send a comprehensive health record to wherever the user desires.
"The HumanaVitality App, designed to make it easy and simple for consumers to engage with their health, enables users to create and measure specific, personal wellness goals (get active, eat better, lose weight or reduce stress)," states Humana. "HumanaVitality rewards members for meeting these goals and for other healthy behaviors, from getting a biometrics screening to taking 10,000 physician-recommended steps a day."
Humana says users of its app can earn Vitality points by meeting fitness goals and they can spend them on items such as fitness gear, movie tickets, music downloads and more at the HumanaVitality Mall.
HumanaVitality's HealthKit integration was designed to preserve the simplicity of Apple's new health platform, according to Bruce Broussard, Humana's president and CEO.
"The simple, innovative, and easy-to-use design of the Apple Health app makes it easier for these Humana members to collectively manage their fitness data so they can improve their health," says Broussard. "Apple is taking a significant step forward with regards to the 'quantified self.' As more consumers use Apple Health, the platform can also help the health care industry leverage the power of technology to further transform the consumer health experience."
To start using the HumanaVitality app, users will need to ensure their mobile devices run iOS 8.0.2. The first iteration of Apple's HealthKit platform missed out on the launch of iOS 8 due to bugs, but the eventual release of iOS 8.0.2, itself plagued with issues, finally brought Apple's health platform to market.
iOS 8 and HealthKit's bug-filled launches were worsened by Bendgate, an ongoing controversy that centers around users complaints about the durability of Apple's latest series of smartphones.
