Apple Watch: Happy 10th Birthday!

John Reites reflects on the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, discussing its evolution from a simple digital watch to a significant health monitoring device. He highlights its impact on society, particularly in promoting health awareness and its applications in clinical research. Reites shares various use cases of the Apple Watch in clinical settings, including its role as a patient support tool, a pharmacovigilance tool, and its ability to track patient activity levels, showcasing the transformative power of wearable technology in healthcare.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Happy 10th birthday Apple Watch.
I remember my first Apple Watch.
You know, everyone used to callit the iWatch, if you remember
that.
I'm sure that drove Apple nuts.
This is actually my first watch.
It came in this white case feltlining.
And then the watch itself was,you know, mine was silver, very

(00:22):
heavy, right?
The, the initial design, anumber of sensors, most that
weren't turned on at the time,USB charging, you know, pretty
practical, straightforwarddevice.
And I remember we would put iton our wrist and we really
thought this was a lighterversion of our phone.
And that's really what this wasgoing to be.
Little did we know 10 yearslater, the kind of impact that

(00:42):
the Apple watch would have, youknow, it took one of the most
standard things that people had,which were watches.
This is one of my favoriteG-Shocks, and I do wear real
watches a lot.
But it took this idea of a watchand replaced it with a digital
health device that people willwear every day.
To see people who grew up andwho always wore a watch trade

(01:02):
that out and just stick with anApple Watch for years to come is
pretty incredible.
And if you look at 280 plusmillion watches sold, you know
that the Apple Watch has made animpact in society.
And I'll never forget, you know,one of the biggest impacts I
noticed, you know, very early onas I'm in a meeting, there's
about, you know, 20 or so peoplein this session all sitting

(01:23):
around a big table.
In that session are a bunch ofnerds and other people, you
know, like me that wanted tohave the first version of the
Apple Watch.
And about halfway through themeeting, seven people just stand
up.
And they stood up because if youremember, there was an app that
would tell you and remind youit's time to stand up.
You've been sitting too long.
You know, everybody's wassynced.
And so the reality is all thesepeople stood up and you kind of
realized two things.

(01:44):
One is it was ridiculous thatseven people were standing up in
this meeting.
But the other end is you wererealizing the kind of impact and
influence that this digitalhealth device had on people that
I would read the app.
It would say time to stand upand I would just do it.
And if you fast forward fromthere, you know that the Apple
Watch has had really an impact,not Not just in the broader
ecosystem, not just the broadereconomy that we have, but it

(02:08):
would also impact clinicalresearch and clinical trials.
And since the first clinicalresearch studies using Apple
Watch were started with us in2016, I've seen Apple Watch get
used as both an exploratory anda secondary endpoint.
but also as a patient supporttool.
And so I just wanted to quicklytell you about four of my top
favorite use cases, because Ireally do think it helps to see

(02:31):
the progressive use and theapplication of Apple Watch that
actually can be helpful forpatients, sites, and research
data at large.
And so the first one was, youknow, using Apple Watch as a
patient support tool that wouldrapidly capture seizure aura.
So somebody has an aura, theybelieve a seizure's coming on.
They didn't have to hold outtheir phone, open it, in their

(02:52):
PIN code and do something, theycould literally just click the
hot button on their Apple Watchand it would have one click that
they could click into a survey.
And once they clicked it, theywould say, I feel the aura.
And that would trigger aprogressive state of data
capture, but would also log thatreally important piece of data
for a clinical trial.
The second use case I think isreally interesting has been

(03:12):
using Apple Watch as apharmacovigilance tool.
So we had one study wherepatients would have a particular
event.
That particular event, we wantedto capture right as it was
starting, but actually we wantto capture as it was starting to
get a call center to call thepatient and to talk to them and
make sure they didn't need anyother support or care, but also

(03:33):
capture some data about thatevent.
And so very similar to theprevious use case, the Apple
Watch was there.
And so when this event happened,They would click the hot button,
open up the app on their AppleWatch.
And as soon as they said yes tothat first survey, so again, two
clicks, data would be captured.
It would send a notification toa call center.
The call center would directlycall the patient and check in

(03:54):
with them.
So this kind ofpharmacovigilance workflow
became really practical andreally easy because it was just
always on the patient's wrist.
Now, the third use case I thinkis interesting is we've had a
number of studies likeregistries and other
observational programs whereexercise or movement or activity
It was something that we wantedto look at additional endpoints

(04:15):
for, just sort of assess thedata.
And so allowing what's called adata donation model to be
present ended up being prettyimpactful.
And so what was really cool wasthat we would ask patients in
the consenting process if theywanted to donate their Apple
Watch data to the registry forX, Y, and Z use cases.
And you'd actually be shocked athow many patients would be

(04:36):
totally fine with that and wouldselect specifically what data
they wanted to offer or donateto the study.
And then that data could becoupled with the other ECOA and
other data that was beingcaptured in the study.
And then the fourth use case, wehad an oncology study where an
Apple watch was really helpfulbecause patients were having a
post dose period where theiractivity levels were very, very

(04:56):
low.
And we wanted to make sure thatthe patients were moving and we
wanted to track that.
And we wanted to actually assesshow much movement was happening
between this visit two and thisvisit three.
So the ability to have the Applewatch there to track overall
activity of how patients weremoving around in their home for
that seven day period betweenvisit two and visit three became
really important, but also not abig burden to patients who just

(05:19):
had to wear the watch and chargeit.
And then the data wouldautomatically be uploaded and
provided to the researchers.
So again, lots of use case forApple Watch, lots of impact and
history over the last 10 years.
The Apple Watch has really beeninstructive, but it's also been
really impactful to the world ofdigital health and its history.
So happy birthday, Apple Watch.