The Apple Watch Series 4 will come with the ECG app, which will be part of watchOS 5.1.2. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams discussed more about the benefits of this app. According to them, Apple will be able to make a change when it comes to the users’ health.
“We have tens of millions of watches on people’s wrists, and we have hundreds of millions of phones in people’s pockets. There’s a huge opportunity to empower people with more information about their health. So this is something we view as not only an opportunity, but a responsibility of ours”, explained Williams.
Reliable and accurate
The ECG app was thoroughly tested by experts. In a press release, Apple explained that the results of the ECG app were compared to the ones of an ECG lead by a cardiologist. In order to test the app, Apple used it in a clinical trial that used around 600 participants.
Rhythm classification from a gold standard 12-lead ECG by a cardiologist was compared to the rhythm classification of a simultaneously collected ECG from the ECG app. The study found the ECG app on Apple Watch demonstrated 98.3 percent sensitivity in classifying AFib and 99.6 percent specificity in classifying sinus rhythm in classifiable recordings. In the study, 87.8 percent of recordings could be classified by the ECG app.
Some experts did believe that the ECG feature might become a problem. According to them, it could lead people to believe that they have problems, despite being fine. “If everybody with an Apple Watch and an alert from an Apple Watch went to a heart-rhythm doctor that was super comfortable with this, then I think it would be O.K. But there are going to be millions of people going to the doctor that in many cases will be just fine,” explained Dr. John Mandrola, a cardiac electrophysiologist.
Nora Reynolds is a major in biology and a minor in Biological Basis of Behavior, writing about science in general. She also likes to try new gadgets and sports about the AI new era.
