The Apple Watch may not yet be a fully FDA-approved medical device in its own right, but it’s already playing a valuable role when it comes to healthcare.
World renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has just launched an update to its existing iOS mobile app — allowing patients who own an Apple Watch to use it to find nearby hospitals and even call doctors directly.
“As part of our commitment to bringing the best technology to our patients, we’re proud to be one of the first hospitals in the U.S. to offer an Apple Watch app,” a new blog post on Cedar-Sinai’s website states. The free app allows Watch owners to quickly and easily find hospital and urgent care locations, get maps and directions to the locations closest them, and even call a recently searched doctor directly from the app.
“Whether patients are at one of our hospitals, medical offices, or at home, our goal is to leverage technology to put their health records in their hands by meeting them where they are,” Darren Dworkin, Cedars-Sinai CIO, said in a statement. Cedars-Sinai has also noted that a version of the app developed especially for iPad will be coming later this year.
Working with Apple to benefit patients
This isn’t the first time that the forward thinking Cedars-Sinai has taken advantage of Apple technology. Last year, it worked with Apple to connect Apple’s HealthKit platform to more than 80,000 patient files at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
This allows Cedars-Sinai doctors to take iOS Health data into account when they make clinical and medical judgments; providing a new way of easily assessing patients’ weight, blood pressure, steps taken, glucose levels, and oxygen saturation levels, based on records kept by their iOS devices.
At present, Apple is taking part in a new FDA pilot program aimed at rapidly advancing the development of digital health applications. If the program works as intended, it could mean that the Apple Watch becomes an officially sanctioned medical device in the near future.
