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As semis advance at ever lower costs, the ability of a smart phone to become a key part of the medical infrastructure offer Apple the only market that could add very significantly to the bottom line. The number of medical devices and monitoring systems that are tied into a smart phone are increasing by the day from oximeters to EKGs and numerous other devices with more coming all the time. With medical consuming twenty percent of the United States entire GDP this market has the ability for Apple to literally double in size with not an opportunity nearly as big even on the horizon. This gives Tim Cook the opportunity to vastly increase the market for an Apple medical ecosystem that Apple could assemble the expertise to vastly improve the current medical quality of the US which ranks poorly (37th in the world). Apple already works with Kaiser and other medical institutions. It isn't hard to see with Apple's vision that they could vastly increase their already growing medical participation to actual devices in the home and hospital to vastly increase the quality of medical and possibly lower prices through the application of technologies in almost every phase of medical with a wide range of semis from sensors to even surgical robots using AI/ML to continuously advance the knowledge and application of carefully and more fully targeted medical than we currently have and lower costs just have they put high power in the hands of the world with an unmatched smart phone and ecosystem. This is the only market big enough worldwide that could actually allow double their already massive size. Any thoughts and comments on this are sought and welcome.
As semis advance at ever lower costs, the ability of a smart phone to become a key part of the medical infrastructure offer Apple the only market that could add very significantly to the bottom line. The number of medical devices and monitoring systems that are tied into a smart phone are increasing by the day from oximeters to EKGs and numerous other devices with more coming all the time. With medical consuming twenty percent of the United States entire GDP this market has the ability for Apple to literally double in size with not opportunity nearly as big even on the horizon. This gives Tim Cook the opportunity to vastly increase the market for an Apple medical ecosystem that Apple could assemble the expertise to vastly improve the current medical quality of the US which ranks poorly (37th in the world). Apple already works with Kaiser and other medical institutions. It isn't hard to see with Apple's vision that they could vastly increase their already growing medical participation to actual devices in the home and hospital to vastly increase the quality of medical and possibly lower prices through the application of technologies in almost every phase of medical with a wide range of semis from sensors to even surgical robots using AI/ML to continuously advance the knowledge and application of carefully and more fully targeted medical than we currently have and lower costs just have they put high power in the hands of the world with an unmatched smart phone and ecosystem. This is the only market big enough worldwide that could actually allow double their already massive size. Any thoughts and comments on this are sought and welcome.
Apple products will not cost legs or arms, whereas critical medical attention might. It is certainly a big room for Apple to venture into the medical field, to develop and release more innovative portable/wearable devices that can help to increase mankind's overall healthcare; By collecting long-term data, trend charts to monitor users' condition, and prevent by predicting what can happen to the users, which is pretty cool and pretty useful I think. As a high-risk diabetes patient with a family history, I am still waiting for them to come out with an Apple Watch so my blood sugar level can be constantly monitored.
I disagree, I feel Apple could significantly lower cost by giving us a real time view of our health and provide an early warning system that could prevent huge costs later as a condition goes from minor to serious. Any other thoughts or observations on this appreciated.
The problem with any medical diagnostics by consumer companies like Apple is that they won't 100% focus on making them accurate and reliable because this costs too much money and qualification takes too long, so there will inevitably be false positives (people seeking medical care unnecessarily -- expensive in the US in particular...) and false negatives (people rely on the monitoring to spot problems, it misses and people die as a result -- even more expensive in the US).
No doubt there will be "don't rely on this, seek medical advice" disclaimers, but once people start to rely on Apple to flag up problems I think you can guarantee that expensive lawsuits will result...
Monitoring of day-to-day variation in things like blood sugar/pressure/oxygen/heart rate, probably fine. Anything more useful/critical but advanced/risky if it goes wrong like heart diagnostics, Apple will run a mile.
The problem with any medical diagnostics by consumer companies like Apple is that they won't 100% focus on making them accurate and reliable because this costs too much money and qualification takes too long, so there will inevitably be false positives (people seeking medical care unnecessarily -- expensive in the US in particular...) and false negatives (people rely on the monitoring to spot problems, it misses and people die as a result -- even more expensive in the US).
No doubt there will be "don't rely on this, seek medical advice" disclaimers, but once people start to rely on Apple to flag up problems I think you can guarantee that expensive lawsuits will result...
Monitoring of day-to-day variation in things like blood sugar/pressure/oxygen/heart rate, probably fine. Anything more useful/critical but advanced/risky if it goes wrong like heart diagnostics, Apple will run a mile.
I thought the same thing when I bought a Tanita health monitoring scale years ago that measured bone mass, fat, water, muscle mass and other parameters and I was dubious until I checked and found the scale was accurate and used in medical research labs. The ability of modern semis and processing, memory for use in everyday medical is only increasing. Early warning is major in preventing minor/inexpensive health problems turning into expensive, severely damaging problems. We have only seen the very tip of the spere in this area and I expect companies like Apple in search of large new growth markets will enter this area to maintain their growth and create an ever-bigger moat around their ever-expanding ecosystem. It's easy to see health insurance carriers requiring this if unless you want to be put in a very expensive health plan. How many people and companies would require this, just like the newest cars have computers that monitor driving patterns and accidents in their memory(which the rental car companies monitor). This is a far to costly expense to ignore. People and insurance companies could soon become a major driver worldwide in this emerging market. With medical consuming twenty percent of our GDP this could be a matter of survival for the US economy where medical expenses and inflation are totally out of control. This could also become a major safety and independence issue for older people and people with chronic conditions. Imagine how useful a covid monitoring device(it could look for symptoms far more easily than the virus) could be that maybe not monitoring for disease itself, but the changes it causes as an early warning system. Many companies offer substantial discounts on the health plans to those that participate in wellness programs). With US medical costing four trillion a year and rising, this is far too big an economic and health issue to ignore.
The problem with any medical diagnostics by consumer companies like Apple is that they won't 100% focus on making them accurate and reliable because this costs too much money and qualification takes too long, so there will inevitably be false positives (people seeking medical care unnecessarily -- expensive in the US in particular...) and false negatives (people rely on the monitoring to spot problems, it misses and people die as a result -- even more expensive in the US).
No doubt there will be "don't rely on this, seek medical advice" disclaimers, but once people start to rely on Apple to flag up problems I think you can guarantee that expensive lawsuits will result...
Monitoring of day-to-day variation in things like blood sugar/pressure/oxygen/heart rate, probably fine. Anything more useful/critical but advanced/risky if it goes wrong like heart diagnostics, Apple will run a mile.
I have also found a significant number of so-called medical professionals that are totally incompetent. One doctor when I was young came out and told my parents after working on a leg injury from an auto accident, he was to drunk to sew me back up. I have had a dentist just recently prove his incompetence by trying to tell me a false hood which I figured out that he was totally incompetent, and the office is doing a good business, scary.
