Several major nontraditional entities, including Amazon and Walmart, are now trying their hand at healthcare, and technology giant Apple is following in their footsteps.
In 2015, Apple launched the Apple Watch, its wearable technology, which allows people to monitor vitals including sleep and heart rate. There are pros and cons to patients having increased insights into their health data, one physician told Becker's.
"The biggest health disruptor in 2024 will be consumer wearables. Patients now have access to their data with devices such as Apple Watch, Karida and Oura Ring. The more information patients have, the better they will be able to manage their own healthcare. From a patient's perspective, it's only positive. From a physician's perspective, it can be overwhelming. I get daily reports from patients about abnormal recordings from their wearables. How do I respond when only the wearable is abnormal? Keeping up with this data and questions from patients has already become demanding," Sri Sundaram, MD, electrophysiologist at South Denver (Colo.) Cardiology Associates, told Becker's.
Here are six updates on Apple's dive into healthcare:
1. The Apple Vision Pro devices, which utilize spatial computing to display 3D graphics and videos over real-life settings, are being tested at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare's newly created Spatial Computing Center of Excellence. Sharp HealthCare purchased 30 of the devices — which run $3,500 apiece — to test for a variety of uses, including working with EHR vendor Epic to investigate healthcare applications for the Vision Pro.
2. Robert Masson, MD, recently became the first spine surgeon to bring Apple Vision Pro into the operating room. Dr. Masson used Apple's headset as a logistics and organizational tool for several minimally invasive spine surgeries using eXeX software.
3. Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai has created a new behavioral health app for Apple Vision Pro. The app, Xaia, which stands for eXtended-Reality Artificially Intelligent Ally, provides patients with a type of therapy whereby they can use a computer program that talks to them.
4. Boston Children's Hospital has also launched an app for the new Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The CyranoHealth app leverages the device's "spatial computing" feature to generate an immersive training experience for nurses and other healthcare workers, with "lifelike" simulations that mimic working with actual medical equipment.
5. Apple continues to hire workers to enhance its healthcare tech department, adding health sensing engineers, health researchers and health AI engineers.
6. In a setback to its healthcare business, Apple made the decision to remove a blood-oxygen sensor from some of its watches following a patent battle against medtech company Masimo.