Zimmer Biomet to Use Apple Watch in Clinical Trial

Can the Apple Watch and iPhone really be effective tools in healthcare? That question might be answered sooner than we think. The Cupertino, CA-based company is teaming up with Zimmer Biomet by using the Apple Watch and iPhone to change the patient journey for two of the most common surgeries Americans undergo each year – knee and hip replacement.

This collaboration has yielded Zimmer Biomet mymobility, an app that uses Apple Watch to facilitate a new level of connection between patients and their surgical care teams, which can immediately impact the journey patients experience when they undergo these procedures.

In addition to the app, Zimmer Biomet is commencing the mymobility Clinical Study, designed to study the app's impact on patient outcomes and overall costs for joint replacement patients.

During this research study, patients will use Zimmer Biomet mymobility with Apple Watch as they progress through their hip or knee replacement journey. Researchers will combine patient-reported feedback with continuous health and activity data from Apple Watch to provide new insights into the power of the Zimmer Biomet mymobility app to impact the standard of care for these common surgeries.

The study is launching today and has the possibility to enroll as many as 10,000 patient participants in the US. "We are incredibly excited to work with Apple to transform the knee and hip replacement experience for patients and surgeons," Bryan Hanson, president and CEO, Zimmer Biomet, said in a release. "At Zimmer Biomet, we are committed to improving care decisions through digital health and we are thrilled to launch one of the largest evidence-gathering clinical studies in orthopedic history."

Apple has been making a splash in healthcare recently. The company received an FDA clearance for an ECG app, a software-only mobile medical application that can classify whether there are signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib), and another software-only mobile medical app analyzing pulse rates for irregular rhythms. The apps can be used on the Apple Watch Series 4.