The Watch Is Smart, but It Can’t Replace Your Doctor

Jeff Williams, an Apple executive, talking about the health-monitoring features of the Apple Watch Series at the rollout of a new model in September 2018.

The Apple Watch has been quite successful as a smart watch. The company would also like it to succeed as a medical device. The recently published results of the Apple Heart Study in the New England Journal of Medicine show there’s still a long way to go.

An estimated six million people in the United States — nearly 2 percent — have atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat that brings increased risk of events like clots, heart attacks and strokes. It’s thought that about 700,000 of people with the condition don’t know they have it.

A selling point of the watch is a sensor that can monitor a wearer’s pulse and potentially detect atrial fibrillation.

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