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This is the key thing. There are many good ideas that exist out there that are "unknown" because the product they are in misses some aspect of how consumers wo
by ChuckMcM 7y ago
This is the key thing.
There are many good ideas that exist out there that are "unknown" because the product they are in misses some aspect of how consumers would wish to consume them. My favorite was that the Tesla Roadster wasn't the first electric car, but it was the first that I could see myself buying at some point.
The nice thing about this being a feature of the watch is that the watch brings a bunch of great stuff all on its own. That it can also call emergency services or diagnose Afib is like bonus time.
- FireBeyond 7y ago> or diagnose Afib is like bonus time Careful with that as an assumption: > In people younger than 55, Apple Watch’s positive predictive value is just 19.6 percent. That means in this group — which constitutes more than 90 percent of users of wearable devices like the Apple Watch — the app incorrectly diagnoses atrial fibrillation 79.4 percent of the time. (You can try the calculation yourself using this Bayesian calculator: enter 0.001 for prevalence, 0.98 for sensitivity, and 0.996 for specificity). > The electrocardiogram app becomes more reliable in older individuals: The positive predictive value is 76 percent among users between the ages of 60 and 64, 91 percent among those aged 70 to 74, and 96 percent for those older than 85. (Source: https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/08/apple-watch-iffy-atrial-fibrillation-detector/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/08/apple-watch-iffy-atrial-...) That being said, I will not at all dispute the ECG tools as very valuable. https://www.ajmc.com/conferences/acc-2019/giant-study-suggests-apple-watch-accurately-catches-afib https://www.ajmc.com/conferences/acc-2019/giant-study-sugges... - discusses the findings in the context of the Apple Health "Study" announced at one of their events.
- saagarjha 7y agoIn this case, it's better to have a false positive diagnosis than a false negative.
- jessaustin 7y agoWhy is that? IANAPhysician, but this seems like a fairly rare malady in this age group. Do we really want all of these people rushing to the hospital? If no one trusts the Apple Watch's diagnosis, how useful could it be?
- saagarjha 7y agoI think the rate is low enough that most people are not getting multiple spurious notifications to rush to the hospital, so trust is probably not the issue. The only problem I see is hospitals being overwhelmed, but again, I'm not sure if we're really overloading them.
- JshWright 7y agoThe fact that the baseline rate is so low is why this sort of widespread testing isn't really helpful, and can do more harm than good. The wider the net you cast, and the more rare the target condition, the lest useful the test becomes.
- jessaustin 7y agoSure, most people are not going to hospital at the suggestion of their Apple watch. However, of those who do go to hospital, nearly all are false positives. This will lead hospital staff to distrust the Apple watch. It may not have that effect on Apple watch owners...
- inimino 7y agoYou're unlikely to get rushed to the hospital due to your watch asking you if you're OK while you're consciously engaged in strenuous activity. It's a sign, not a diagnosis.
- zf00002 7y agoYes I would really like to get multi-thousand dollar hospital bills because my watch made a mistake.
- JshWright 7y agoNot necessarily, no... There are costs to false positives (money, time, stress, etc).