“Until now, the smartwatch was seen as a niche product appealing to only hardcore tech users; however, I think the Apple Watch will not only make smartwatches mainstream, but also be the driver towards smartwatch adoption in the enterprise,” Michael DeFranco writes for Forbes. “No longer will doctors be pulled away from patients to respond to pages or phone calls. Rather, healthcare professionals can receive instant updates without needing to remove their phone from their pocket. This will provide not only better communication within the hospital, but also improved bedside experiences for patients.”
“Smartwatches will also improve the accuracy of patient records. Eliminating the need for pagers means communication will be redirected from phone calls to messages. The result of this change is a concrete history of decisions made by doctors and nurses with regards to a patient’s care,” DeFranco writes. “Messages can be easily accessed while updating charts or writing prescriptions to confirm directions and reduce miscommunication. Again, this not only saves time for healthcare providers but also improves the patient experience and can save lives.”
DeFranco writes, “As long as we are careful and thoughtful about the potential pitfalls, the communication benefits offered by wearables like the Apple Watch are tremendous – I look forward to the day when the smartwatch is as important a part of the doctor’s toolkit as the stethoscope.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple. Improving people’s lives since 1976.
Related articles:
HealthTap app for Apple Watch puts a doctor on your wrist – April 13, 2015
Why Apple’s ResearchKit signals a golden age for health care – March 28, 2015
How the Apple Watch will help you take charge of your health – February 23, 2015
Apple. Making people’s lives bearable in a (what was once) a Windows world!
People, and journalists, don’t realize yet what is going to connect to Apple’s system.
Already, an implantable sensor that goes under the skin can send out real time blood sugar information, and if that is possible, so are many other detections.
It is only a matter of time before an Apple Watch, watch band will have its own battery, electronics and sensors.
unfortunately, implantable devices have limited lifetimes, especially sensors. it will be several years before Apple will have a system that monitors health info with a reliable, accurate implantable device.
much more likely that medical equipment makers will continue to leverage both Apple and the Android hardware to act as the dumb display terminal to their expensive equipment
The argument against Apple putting sensors in makes sense. I thought they might eventually move that direction, too, but the argument against goes something like this:
The liability of something like constant glucose monitoring is immense. Apple is happy to allow others to take that liability in the field they already specialize in and connect to the Watch, etc.
With that said, if it could someday be built into a third party watch band, that would be really cool!
yes what this guy is saying is true- the Apple Watch could help doctors a lot no doubt but…….
As I’ve said before- to me the Apple Watch has all the hardware you need to do this:
give you two minutes warning of a heart attack or stroke.
All that is required now is some smart software to figure out how to do this.
Just imagine….