When Daniel Poston, a second-year medical student in Manhattan, opened the App Store on his iPhone a couple of weeks ago, he was astonished to see an app for a new heart study prominently featured.
People often learn about new research studies through in-person conversations with their doctors. But not only did this study, run by Stanford University, use a smartphone to recruit consumers, it was financed by Apple. And it involved using an app on the Apple Watch to try to identify irregular heart rhythms.
Intrigued, Mr. Poston, who already owned an Apple Watch, registered for the heart study right away. Then he took to Twitter to encourage others to do likewise — suggesting that it was part of a breakthrough in health care.
"It's not inconceivable, by the time I graduate from medical school," Mr. Poston said, "that the entire practice of medicine can be revolutionized by technology."
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/technology/big-tech-health-care.html
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Freed From the iPhone, the Apple Watch Finds a Medical Purpose - The New York Times
In the last months of Steve Jobs's life, the Apple co-founder fought cancer while managing diabetes.
Because he hated pricking his finger to draw blood, Mr. Jobs authorized an Apple research team to develop a noninvasive glucose reader with technology that could potentially be incorporated into a wristwatch, according to people familiar with the events, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.
It was one of many medical applications that Apple considered for the Apple Watch, which debuted in 2015. Yet because many of the health features proved unreliable or required too many compromises in the watch's size or battery life, Apple ended up positioning the device for activity tracking and notifications instead.
Now, the Apple Watch is finding a medical purpose after all.
In September, Apple announced that the Apple Watch would no longer need to be tethered to a smartphone and would become more of a stand-alone device. Since then, a wave of device manufacturers have tapped into the watch's new features like cellular connectivity to develop medical accessories — such as an electrocardiogram for monitoring heart activity — so people can manage chronic conditions straight from their wrist.
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/technology/apple-watch-medical-purpose.html
Because he hated pricking his finger to draw blood, Mr. Jobs authorized an Apple research team to develop a noninvasive glucose reader with technology that could potentially be incorporated into a wristwatch, according to people familiar with the events, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.
It was one of many medical applications that Apple considered for the Apple Watch, which debuted in 2015. Yet because many of the health features proved unreliable or required too many compromises in the watch's size or battery life, Apple ended up positioning the device for activity tracking and notifications instead.
Now, the Apple Watch is finding a medical purpose after all.
In September, Apple announced that the Apple Watch would no longer need to be tethered to a smartphone and would become more of a stand-alone device. Since then, a wave of device manufacturers have tapped into the watch's new features like cellular connectivity to develop medical accessories — such as an electrocardiogram for monitoring heart activity — so people can manage chronic conditions straight from their wrist.
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/technology/apple-watch-medical-purpose.html
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