Android 16 will bring a major update to Health Connect, which will enable it to support medical records in the FHIR format, including vaccination records. The first developer preview of Android 16 was recently launched, offering a glimpse at some of the new features in the coming year.
According to the Phone Arena website, the preview confirms that Android 16 will bring an update to the Health Connect service with support for medical records.
Health Connect makes it easier for health and fitness apps to share data on Android .
It also acts as a hub through which health and fitness apps can communicate. If your fitness tracking app tracks your heart rate and you want that data to be available to a different app, Health Connect helps by providing a single set of APIs to read and write the data.
One limitation of Health Connect is that apps can access and store data on it if the service has APIs for them.
Currently, different types of data are supported and are categorized under activity, body measurement, cycle tracking, nutrition, sleep, and vitals, but currently, medical records are not supported, and this will change in Android 16.
The first preview of Android 16 shows support for medical records in the FHIR format, which stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, which is essentially a set of rules and specifications for exchanging electronic healthcare data.
According to Google, the new Health Connect APIs will require explicit user consent for use.
The Health Connect app will also have a new “Browse Health Records” button with Android 16, and the button will be placed on the home screen under the “Manage Data” section.
At this time, it's not clear whether older versions of Android will get access to Health Connect's medical records support.