The Apple Watch, with its built-in ability to monitor and communicate biomarkers, such as the wearer’s heart-rate, could push health-care monitoring into the mainstream.
Apple Inc.AAPL -0.03% announced its first wearable computer, along with two new iPhones and a mobile payment system, at an event in Cupertino, Calif., Tuesday. Calling health care a “very important area for Apple,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Apple Watch is a “comprehensive health and fitness device.”
To be sure, a number of devices already help customers monitor their health. According to a recent report, usage of such devices drops off considerably when the novelty fades. But the Apple Watch brings a new level of technological power, not to mention brand appeal. CIOs, who have seen the effects of the iPhone and the iPad on the enterprise, are not ones to dismiss a new offering from Apple.
Health-care CIOs tell CIO Journal that they already see potential for the device, from collecting data in new ways to helping hospitals reduce costly emergency room visits. But before any hospital can make the Apple Watch a part of its care strategy, CIOs will need to develop a strategy for managing and understanding a new, and possibly massive, stream of wearable-generated data.
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Christiana Care Health System will likely use the Apple Watch to improve care for patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, says CIO Randy Gaboriault, who sees the device streaming information about a wearer’s blood sugar levels to the hospital’s systems. When used in tandem with predictive analytics software, the data could help Christiana Care determine the chances of a patient being admitted to care. Mr. Gaboriault said that he could see cases where such biomarker data could prompt the hospital to dispatch a home health nurse, reducing the chance of a costly emergency room visit. “Better care costs less money… a technology like that will fit wonderfully on the patient front,” Mr. Gaboriault said.
The Apple Watch’s information-streaming capabilities could extend to the administration of patient’s medications, adds Behrooz Najafi, CIO of Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc. Patients who neglect to take crucial medication sometimes end up in the emergency room. Mr. Najafi said that software running on the Apple Watch could track a patient’s health vitals, flagging clinicians when signs fall below normal, which could suggest that the patient has skipped their medications.
Mr. Najafi added that an Apple Watch, when used in conjunction with sensor-equipped pills, could someday track the effects of medication on the human body — information that could help a pharmaceutical company quantify the effects of its products beyond the laboratory. “You can monitor patients and see how they are feeling after taking your drug,” said Mr. Najafi.
Health-care CIOs are optimistic about Apple Watch partly thanks to the launch earlier of the Apple health care framework HealthKit, which stores health information collected by various devices and is designed to work with iOS apps. It can channel information to doctors, app developers or others if a user gives permission to do so.Although CIOs told CIO Journal they were excited about HealthKit when Apple unveiled it in June, it faces regulatory and privacy challenges. Apple said it wouldn’t let app developers store health data in iCloud, and apps using data from HealthKit cannot give diagnoses or treatment advice.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, insurer Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic are among large health care institutions that are building apps to work with Apple’s health offerings, the WSJ wrote.
Getting patients to use the devices to monitor their health may be another matter, as history suggests wearables quickly fall out of favor with consumers. One out of three consumers who are using or have used a fitness and activity tracker reported that they stopped using it. Almost half said they stopped mainly because they were no longer interested in tracking their activity, according to IDC research released in June.
Apple faces some broader challenges; it enters a crowded fray for wearables and fitness trackers, whose adoption has been dubious and inconsistent at best. Google Inc.’s Glass smart glasses have alienated some consumers concerned about privacy, while reception to smart watches from several device makers has been tepid.
Apple Watch pairs with users’ iPhones via WiFi or Bluetooth, allowing consumers to send and receive text messages, speak into the phone to search content and other requests via Siri, and answer calls. They will also scroll, zoom and navigate the Web with a special home button, called Digital Crown.
Date: September 9, 2014