How Will The Apple Watch Impact Healthcare?

Similar to what the company did with digital music more than a decade ago, Apple will have to create and nurture partnerships with players in the healthcare industry in order make its Apple Watch — and wearables in general — go mainstream.

“Apple needs the support of partners, like app developers, health care companies and medical technology companies, that will help create the functions that give people a reason to want to wear a computer around their wrist all the time in the first place,” Mark A. McAndrew, a partner with the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, which works with healthcare clients, told the New York Times.

Apple had deftly negotiated with music labels to allow people to buy songs at 99 cents apiece via iTunes — a huge reason why the iPod made MP3 players cool and popular, the NYT noted. The company will have to mirror its iPod strategy in order to make its wearables relevant.  

Believing that partnerships are indeed key to being successful in the healthcare space, Apple in June partnered with electronic medical records company Epic Systems and the Mayo Clinic to develop HealthKit and apply it in clinical settings, as noted by Information Week.

“For Apple, Mayo Clinic offers legitimacy — and a high-profile teammate — as Apple makes its first concerted push into the multi-trillion dollar health care industry,” Dan Diamond wrote in a recent column in Forbes.

Mayo is not the only prestigious institution that is collaborating with Apple. The company has reportedly talked with the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and Mount Sinai on how they can use HealthKit to manage patients’ health data, according to Reuters. Apple is also working with Epic System’s rival Allscripts, according to anonymous sources cited in the report.

Apple has already forged a broad-based alliance with IBM, including the development of a number of healthcare applications that integrate Apple’s devices with IBM’s enterprise and data analytics solutions. 

Moreover, Apple is also “heavily exploring medical devices, specifically sensor technology that can help predict heart attacks,” a San Francisco Chronicle report said earlier this year, although advanced sensors are not featured in the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. Apple is building a team of medical device experts that could churn out potentially transformative health sensor and medical device technologies.

“With the potential for more sensors on mobile devices, Apple believes there is the opportunity to do more with devices, and that there may be a moral obligation to do more,” the FDA stated in a response to the organization’s talks with Apple, according to 9to5Mac. “Sensors already exist on medical devices. For instance, Apple’s devices have cameras and accelerometers. There is still an opportunity to innovate, but Apple wants to make sure they are on the side of the FDA.”

While Apple — a relative newcomer to healthcare — is wisely seeking partners and consulting with regulators, the company is facing huge challenges inherent in this industry.

As McAndrew told the NYT, patient privacy is a paramount concern, and Apple will have to ensure that health data is protected under federal laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). “That’s where the privacy issue comes into play, because health care providers are scared to death of data breaches and privacy issues,” McAndrew said. “They’ve got to figure out a way to get them comfortable.”

Besides Apple’s brand appeal, health and fitness sensing capabilities could draw people to the Apple Watch. As BGR reported, the Apple Watch can track calories burned, heart rate, and fitness metrics. The iPhone 6 has similar features, and the data is aggregated by its new Health app and stored in the HealthKit cloud-based tool. The Health app comes with iOS 8, which runs the newly-unveiled devices and consolidates data from other apps and third-party devices into a single dashboard.