On September 12th, Apple unveiled the most recent iteration of its popular smartwatch line, the Apple Watch Series 4. Now wearables in general and the Apple smartwatch in particular are said to have an outsized influence on many aspects of our live. One field that is supposed to be particularly susceptible to these products is the healthcare industry. I believe, that the Apple watch is poised to impact healthcare in two major ways.
Firstly, Apple is changing the healthcare industry by “gamifying” healthcare, meaning that it turns looking after one’s health into a game that rewards one for doing healthy activities such as hiking. The newest version of the Apple Watch for the first time enables individuals to now also compete with their friends to see who can obtain the highest score when it comes to exercising. Gamification is a novel way of increasing peoples motivation to complete a particular task and letting friends compete with each other for glory is one popular variant of it.
But it is not only on the behavioral side that the Apple watch revolutionizes the healthcare industry, it is also the technology that Apple introduces which will shape healthcare for years to come. Series 4 for the first time has a wrist band which can create an electrocardiogram (ECG). Using the ECG as an input, the Apple Watch then can determine based on one’s heart beat pattern whether one is suffering from Atrial Fibrillation. As of right now, Doctors are in opposition to this particular feature, fearing that due to the difficulty of accurately diagnosing Atrial Fibrillation (AF) based on an ECG, the Apple watch will lead to an increase of false positives where healthy people are being sent to their doctors believing that they suffer from AF. What many of these physicians however overlook is the fact that the Apple watch will provide them with a lot more data that can then be used to both uncover AF and to provide individuals suffering from an arrhythmic heartbeat with the appropriate treatment.
In conclusion, the Apple smart watch affects the healthcare industry because it gamifies looking after ones health and because it provides doctors with more data that enables them to make better decisions for their patients.
This blog post is based on the following articles:
https://hbr.org/2018/10/why-doctors-shouldnt-dismiss-the-apple-watchs-new-ecg-app
Hi Peter,
Incredible to hear your view on the impact of wearables such as the Apple smartwatch on the health industry. As a wearer of an Apple watch I might be slightly biased, but I truly believe it motivates wearers to move more, focus on a healthy breathing pattern and gain more insights into your heart rate.
Nonetheless, I would like to challenge your view even more by posing the following. Recently, I read an article on wearables that can surpass blood tests by measure pH levels in the wearer’s sweat. This results in a painless solution to ordinary pin-prick tests. This will allow for diagnosis and monitoring of diseases such as diabetes and even some types of cancer. Do you think this is something that will be integrated in smartwatches in the future and how do you think this will change the health care industry?
https://www.med-technews.com/news/wearable-sensor-could-be-painless-solution-to-blood-tests/
I am curious to hear what you think about this (future) new functionality of wearables!