Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

Apple Watch's abnormal pulse feature driving many unnecessary healthcare visits, Mayo Clinic researchers say

MobiHealth News: A new review of Apple Watch-related presentations suggests that the device's abnormal pulse detection feature may be fueling unnecessary healthcare utilization.

"The observation that new clinically actionable cardiovascular diagnoses of interest were diagnosed in only 11.4% of patients following medical evaluation as directed by the treating provider suggests a high false positive rate as a screening tool for undiagnosed cardiovascular disease," Mayo Clinic researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. "False positive screening results have the potential to lead to excessive healthcare resource utilization and anxiety among the 'worried well.'”

Read article