Bridging the integration gap between patient-generated blood glucose data and electronic health records

Telemedicine can facilitate population health management by extending the reach of providers to efficiently care for high-risk, high-utilization populations. However, for telemedicine to be maximally useful, data collected using telemedicine technologies must be reliable and readily available to healthcare providers. To address current gaps in integration of patient-generated health data into the electronic health record (EHR), we examined 2 patient-facing platforms, Epic MyChart and Apple HealthKit, both of which facilitated the uploading of blood glucose data into the EHR as part of a diabetes telemedicine intervention. All patients were offered use of the MyChart platform; we subsequently invited a purposive sample of patients who used the MyChart platform effectively (n = 5) to also use the Apple HealthKit platform. Patients reported both platforms helped with diabetes self-management, and providers appreciated the convenience of the processes for obtaining patient data. Providers stated that the EHR data presentation format for Apple HealthKit was challenging to interpret; however, they also valued the greater perceived accuracy the Apple HealthKit data. Our findings indicate that patient-facing platforms can feasibly facilitate transmission of patient-generated health data into the EHR and support telemedicine-based care.