Apple publishes a new report detailing how it’s worked on helping the health of Apple users
The new report was shared in a press release, and it details different ways in which Apple’s tech helps users, developers, and even health organizations to enhance health and research, as well as care. The report centers on the empowerment that Apple’s products bring to people.
Of course, another key aspect Apple talks about is privacy, and it doesn’t fail to mention that all the work it’s been doing in the health-related field has been keeping privacy at the center of all things.
But what has exactly Apple done in health? The report centers on two key categories. The first one describes Apple’s focus on health and fitness with the Apple Watch + iPhone and the second talks about Apple’s work as a company with different medical institutions and organizations.
Apple Watch and iPhone: a health focus
In the report, Apple underlines several key features of the Apple Watch and the iPhone and shares some interesting data points. For those of you who don’t know, the Health app was released back in 2014, and the first Apple Watch came about in 2015. Since then, Cupertino has been working on introducing many health and fitness features to the wearable.
Apple underlines these three main advantages of its health and fitness features:
- A centralized and secure place to store and view health data
- Features that enable the Apple watch to be “an intelligent guardian for users’ health”
- Features that help improve users’ daily life with healthier habits
The report also talks about the upcoming release of the iOS 16 and watchOS 9 updates in the fall, underlining the focus on 17 areas of health and fitness: from heart health and sleep to mobility and women’s health.
We all have read headlines and heard stories about one of the Apple Watch’s health-related features helping someone avoid a health issue, or saving someone’s life. In case you’re curious, the most recent one is about the Apple Watch’s irregular heartbeat notifications helping a woman discover she had a rare form of tumor that could have killed her if gone unnoticed.
Image source – Apple
As you can see in the image above, with iOS 16 and watchOS 9 (to come in the fall) there will be over 150 different types of health data that you can store in the Health app from Apple Watch, iPhone, and even connected third-party apps and devices. On top of that, some institutions in the US, UK, and Canada can also store health records data here.
Apple’s focus on helping the medical community
The second main section of the report is focused on Apple’s work with the medical community – basically, the company has been supporting research and care. The report underlines that direct collaboration with the medical community is necessary for health innovation. The key aspects in which Apple has been doing just that are also listed:
- Building tools to enable researchers to make new scientific discoveries
- Helping strengthen the physician-patient relationship with meaningful data
- Collaborating with health organizations to promote a healthy lifestyle
- Supporting public health initiatives
In the physician-patient relationship department, the company shares that its feature Health Records is now available to patients at over 800 institutions across over 12,000 locations, a pretty significant number, we might add. Health Records make it easy for patients to see their available medical data in the Health app.
Apple also underlines that all of its health-related features have gone through an extensive scientific validation process and have privacy embedded at their core.
