New cardiological study reveals that Apple Watch owners with atrial fibrillation get better care

The Cupertino tech giant says that its Apple Watch is not just a smartwatch but also an efficient health monitoring device. In 2018, Apple Watch Series 4 supported an ECG feature that measures and records users’ heart rhythm when they are experiencing rapid or skipped heartbeat to share the data with physicians. And the irregular rhythm notification the smartwatch occasionally checks the user’s heart rhythm and alerts the user if there is any irregularity via a notification.

For my users, these Apple Watch features have proven to be life-saving, even to extent of bringing undiagnosed heart conditions to the surface. However, to find an association between wearables like the Apple Watch and health care, a study was conducted.

A 90-days follow up study of AF patients with wearable like Apple Watch reveals that they receive better health care

The scope of the study was to find that:

Do individuals with known atrial fibrillation (AF) who use smartwatches or wearable devices use more health care resources and achieve better AF control?

To find out The associations of wearables with health outcomes and health care use are unknown. so To characterize patients with AF who use wearables and compare pulse rate and health care use between individuals who use wearables and those who do not.

The 16,320 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) of the study were divided into two groups: individuals with and without wearable devices. Over 90-days follow-up in tertiary care, an academic health system, it was found that patients with wearable devices have more health care.

Electronic medical records were reviewed to identify 125 individuals who used wearables and had adequate pulse-rate follow-up who were then matched using propensity scores 4 to 1 with 500 individuals who did not use wearables.

This study found that follow-up health care use among individuals with AF was increased among those who used wearables compared with those with similar pulse rates who did not use wearables. Given the increasing use of wearables by patients with AF, prospective, randomized, long-term evaluation of the associations of wearable technology with health outcomes and health care use is needed.

In addition to the current health features, Apple is working on introducing new ones. Recently, the company has launched to study to investigate if Apple Watch can detect early COVID-19 symptoms via heart rate variability. And a study by Stanford University revealed that Apple Watch can be used to measure its wearer’s ‘frailty‘.