In keeping with its mobile health ambitions, Apple has snapped up Gliimpse, a personal health data startup which uses machine learning technology to help users make sense of their medical records.
The company was founded in 2013 by former Apple employee-turned-serial-entrepeneur Anil Sethi. Apple reportedly acquired it earlier this year, although (no surprises here) it hasn’t publicly announced what it plans to do with it yet.
According to Gliimpse’s website, the company claims that:
“We’ve built a magical machine. It takes incomprehensible electronic medical records and turns them into understandable, standardized, coded elements (LOINC, RxNorm, CPT, ICD and SNOMED), and terminology that both humans and machines can easily understand and use. The Rosetta Stone meets machine learning.”
Apple has recently been ramping up its investment in health. Earlier this month it hired Evan Doll, co-founder of “social magazine” company Flipboard, to serve as Apple’s new director of health software engineering.
Apple has also hired Sage Bionetworks founder Stephen Friend and former Nest Labs technology chief Yoky Matsuoka, both of whom are said to be working on health-oriented projects.
Photo: Gliimpse
It was recently reported that Apple is developing a “killer” new health device (a description I hope doesn’t make it intact through any marketing meetings), which will debut in 2017 — most likely baked into the 2017 iPhone refresh to help monitor heart rate and blood sugar levels.
The company has also made big strides in catching up with Google and Facebook in terms of machine learning. Hopefully this acquisition allows Apple to make even more positive advances in this area.
Source: Fast Company
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
One response to “Apple increases health focus by buying medical AI startup”
VITALES Gives Doctors Access to Patient Health Information Before the Appointment
• The pioneering Spanish company Massive Bionics has joined Apple HealthKit to develop the new VITALES® app, now available for iPhone in the App Store.
• Doctors can access patients’ health records for the entire previous months in a convenient online graphic format, using DriCloud software medico.
Evaluate patients’ recovery progress during rehabilitation, access their heart rate and respiratory frequency during exercise, see a diabetes patient’s glucose levels, or measure their blood pressure in real time: all of this is now possible for doctors in hospitals and clinics everywhere. Massive Bionics has launched an advanced system based on Apple’s HealthKit, which allows patients to collect their own health data and send it to their clinic in real time, using DriCloud® medical records software.
The result is VITALES®, an iPhone app now available for patients to download from the Apple App Store. This new app allows patients to share their medical information with their doctor using their iPhone or Apple Watch and a variety of health monitoring devices. From any computer, a doctor can rapidly see how the patient’s health has progressed before the visit, in convenient graphic displays.
Uses for the VITALES® system:
1. Control and management of chronic illnesses: Including arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic respiratory insufficiency, etc. VITALES® allows doctors to monitor patients’ health metrics from a distance in real time, and make medication adjustments whenever required.
2. Weight loss: Endocrinologists can constantly measure weight change, exercise completed, calories consumed, nutrition metrics, vitamins and other supplements taken, water intake, etc.
3. Sports medicine: Exercise time, speed and distance covered; body mass index, percent body fat, and percent muscle weight; alcohol consumption, etc. All these statistics and more can be monitored through the app.
4. Reproductive health: Patients can use VITALES® to record data such as the qualities of cervical mucus, spotting, menstruation, ovulation, base body temperature, sexual activity, etc.
5. Sleep analysis.
The most powerful and safe way to care for illness
At every moment, patients have the power to control their information and decide what they want share with their doctor. The doctor only receives the information that the patient selects, and patient information is never shared with third parties or with Apple. All patient information is completely confidential.