Apple Health Alternatives: Personal Health Record Apps for Europe
Looking for alternatives to Apple Health for managing medical records in Europe? Here's why most solutions fall short and what to look for.
Apple Health is great for tracking steps and heart rate from your Apple Watch. But when it comes to managing actual medical records — lab results, doctor's notes, imaging reports — it falls short, especially in Europe.
If you're looking for something more comprehensive, here's what you need to know.
What Apple Health Does Well
- Device integration: Seamlessly syncs with Apple Watch and iPhone sensors
- Activity tracking: Steps, workouts, heart rate, sleep
- Health Records: Can connect to some hospital systems via FHIR
- Free: Comes with your iPhone
Where Apple Health Falls Short in Europe
No Document Upload
You can't add PDFs or images of lab results. If your doctor gives you a printed report or emails you a PDF, there's no way to store it in Apple Health.
Health Records Doesn't Work Here
Apple's "Health Records" feature — which connects to hospital electronic health record systems — works almost exclusively with US healthcare providers. In the EU, hospital integration is virtually non-existent.
No AI Analysis
Apple Health stores your data but doesn't help you understand it. You get numbers without context, trends without explanations.
No OCR
Can't extract data from paper documents or scanned PDFs. If you have years of lab results in paper form, they stay in paper form.
The European Health Data Reality
Unlike the US, Europe doesn't have a dominant health app ecosystem. Instead, you're dealing with:
Fragmented Hospital Portals
Each hospital or clinic has its own patient portal. You might have login credentials for 5+ different systems, none of which talk to each other.
Country-Specific Solutions
Some countries have national health record systems (like Finland's Kanta or Estonia's e-Health), but these don't work across borders and often have limited functionality.
PDF Hell
Most of your health data arrives as PDF attachments in emails or printed documents. There's no standard way to consolidate them.
No Longitudinal View
When you change doctors or move cities, you essentially start over. Your complete health history doesn't follow you.
What to Look for in a Health Record App
If you want to actually manage your medical records in Europe, look for:
| Feature | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Document upload (PDF, images) | Store any format from any provider |
| OCR extraction | Turn paper and PDFs into structured data |
| AI-powered analysis | Understand what your results mean |
| Trend visualization | See how biomarkers change over time |
| GDPR compliance | Your health data deserves proper protection |
| EU data residency | Data stored in Europe, under EU law |
| Works on any device | Not locked to one ecosystem |
Why We Built Healthbase
We experienced this frustration firsthand. Lab results scattered across email inboxes. Paper reports in folders. Different patient portals for different clinics. No way to see trends or get answers.
Healthbase solves this by:
- Accepting any document format — Upload PDFs, images, or scanned papers
- Extracting data automatically — OCR pulls out lab values and structures them
- Providing AI analysis — Ask questions, get explanations, understand trends
- Storing everything in one place — Your complete health history, searchable
- Keeping data in the EU — German servers, GDPR compliant, client-side encryption
The Bottom Line
Apple Health is a fitness tracker, not a medical record manager. In Europe, where hospital integrations don't exist and health data is fragmented across dozens of systems, you need a purpose-built solution.
The question isn't "Apple Health vs. some other app." The question is: do you want your medical history scattered across PDFs and patient portals forever, or do you want one intelligent system that makes sense of it all?
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