Apple & the future of health

Apple has been working with hospitals, doctors, and medical schools to bring vital health features to its tech

- DAVID CROOKES

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT the Apple Watch can help you to keep tabs on your health and improve your fitness. Strap it to your wrist, and you can use its advanced sensors to track your sleep, monitor your heart, and get insights into your respiratory rate. You can also get information about your runs, swim workouts, and strength training, and a whole lot more besides.

But did you know that medical professionals are also making good use of the Apple Watch – and not only for their own health, but for the benefit of their patients? In utilizing the Watch and lots of other Apple technology, they're tapping into a growing ecosystem cultivated by the Cupertino-based giant that, with the assistance of third-party developers, is shaping the future of healthcare.

Dr Paul Testa is among those witnessing the transformative effects of Apple's entry into the wider health business. He's an emergency room doctor and Chief Health Informatics Officer at NYU Langone Health, an integrated academic health system located in New York City. In 2018, he was part of a team that studied the effects of smartwatch push notifications on patient care.

The idea was a simple one: to speed up the process of delivering vital lab results to emergency room (ER) doctors, recognizing that patient care often hinges on the result of a diagnostic test. By implementing a system in which those results were pushed to Apple Watch devices worn by doctors, medics could immediately receive important information. Since medics didn't have to wait until they had a chance to check the hospital's electronic health records, patients could progress from arrival to discharge far more quickly.