Apple invention turns Apple Watch into urgent care alert system

A patent application published Thursday suggests Apple is working to turn Apple Watch into a full-fledged medical device, one that can monitor a user's vital signs and automatically send out an alert should they need urgent care.

As published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple's application for "Care event detection and alerts" provides for a hardware system capable of monitoring its surrounding environment for so-called "care events," described as any event that necessitates assistance from medical personnel, police, fire rescue or other emergency technicians. For example, the device could be programmed to monitor a user's heart for an arrhythmia and, upon detection, send out an alert to family or emergency responders.

While not specifically mentioned in the document, Apple Watch is uniquely qualified to fulfill the proposed system's goals. Apple's wearable not only incorporates advanced sensors and processing hardware capable of monitoring for care events, but also packs in a communications suite that can be used to transmit emergency notifications via iPhone.

In operation, the wearable and its host device work together to detect a care event. For example, if an iPhone's accelerometer detects a sudden change in acceleration, while Apple Watch no longer detects a heart rate, the system might determine that a user has had a heart attack and is incapacitated. Other examples include car accidents, muggings and other events that can be quantified by onboard accelerometer, heart rate, microphone, GPS and other sensors.

Once a care event is detected, the system sends out alerts to a predefined list of recipients, dubbed the "care list" or "care circle." Established by the user, or as a phone preset, the care list contains contact information for family members, doctors and general emergency services.

Apple points out that the system needs fine tuning to avoid false alarms. To hedge against system errors, the invention includes a method of triage that escalates notifications based on severity before sending them out to recipients on the care list, itself split into a distinct hierarchy. For example, a user's spouse or family might populate the first level on the care list and will therefore get the initial alert. In some cases emergency services contacts sit at the highest level and are only notified if the situation escalates or all lower level list recipients fail to respond.

Some embodiments call for customized alerts that contain a user's relevant medical records (gathered from the Health app or an offsite database), location and other important information. In some cases users — if lucid — can manually dictate what information is disseminated through onscreen cues.

Apple has yet to position Apple Watch as a bonafide medical device, most likely due to that industry's tight regulations. Indeed, rumors last year claimed the company scrapped plans to integrate advanced health monitoring features into Watch due in part to regulatory hurdles.

While today's patent application is evidence that Apple is continuing work on medical applications for the Apple Watch platform, it remains unclear when such technology will make its way into a shipping product.

Apple's care detection and alert patent application was first filed for in September 2015 and credits Martha E. Hankey and James Foster as its inventors.

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28 Comments

mr o 1045 comments · 18 Years

About 8 years ago

Now, this is what I call a *killer feature*: It is both a Time & Life saver. A must have for the  watch.

>:x

EDIT: Coincidentally, this is my *911*'th post.

EMSmedic 2 comments · 8 Years

This is a good idea and a bad idea. I work as an emergency responder and having so many alerts going out at one time can be very challenging To the service, especially when the apple watch isn't accurate. The elderly mainly, has brittle and or tough skin at times where the apple watch will and can inaccurately give false readings. I have a apple watch and it's not always accurate. I hope they can get it right th first time.

interdyne 69 comments · 15 Years

AppleInsider said:

A patent application published Thursday suggests Apple is working to turn Apple Watch into a full-fledged medical device, one that can monitor a user's vital signs and automatically send out an alert should they need urgent care.

This is what the watch was supposed to be, should be and will be. Today everyone outside of a hospital bed is unmonitored. Five years from now, I believe it will be considered unsafe/insane to be unmonitored. Everyone in the world who can afford it will be monitored. This is a multibillion-dollar, multibillion-user market that the Apple Watch was always meant to address. And now, hopefully, it will.

When this comes out, I will buy an Apple Watch, put it on and never take it off again.

radarthekat 3902 comments · 12 Years

EMSmedic said:

This is a good idea and a bad idea. I work as an emergency responder and having so many alerts going out at one time can be very challenging To the service, especially when the apple watch isn't accurate. The elderly mainly, has brittle and or tough skin at times where the apple watch will and can inaccurately give false readings. I have a apple watch and it's not always accurate. I hope they can get it right th first time.

The interesting thing about the Watch's accuracy is that it doesn't need to be perfectly accurate. For example, in measuring your exercise levels, the Watch may not perfectly determine your heart rate compared to a professional arm cuff, but that's not the point entirely. Since its constantly measuring just YOU, it can provide a relative heart rate to determine when you are at rest versus when you are active. Similar here. If old skin causes the reading to be off a bit, then it'll be off a bit all the time for that person. Then if it suddenly shifts in a manner that suggests an adverse event, it can generate an internal alert based upon that relative change. The internal alert event causes the system to look at other data, like accelerometer data, which while much more accurate is somewhat subject as to what it might imply. Together these data points, in context with the data stream that came immediately prior, might be able to make a good assumption about what's going on with the wearer.

And, of course, Apole would likely roll out support for only those scenarios where their research and testing gave them a high level of confidence in the ability of te assumption to be accurate. So you'll get certain types of monitoring and not others, at least initially. Also, as I've suggested here before the Watch was even introduced, there might one day be medical monitoring-specific bands, such as bands with glocuse monitoring technology built in. These would cost more, might be offered by medical device manufacturers rather than Apple, and covered by insurance. They might tie into Apple's own software that provides the monitoring and alert system, so the software side is all one system and not separate systems from multiple vendors.

linkman 1040 comments · 11 Years

In the USA the FDA strongly regulates medical devices. They err on the side of caution and it is very difficult to add new devices or change old ones. I've read plenty of stories where medical device manufacturers run into catch-22 situations where they need to install security updates NOW on the device (running something like Windows XP a few years ago) but can't do it without FDA approval which can take years. Regulations are creating a paralysis by analysis situation. Devices such as the Apple Watch will be useful and potentially life-saving in spite of flaws and inaccuracies.