Apple’s hiring of dozens of medical doctors suggest it is setting its sights on helping customers to manage disease, it has been claimed.
The technology company, which is seeking to develop and integrate health technologies into the Apple Watch, iPad and iPhone, could build applications that can help people with serious medical problems, rather than just catering to the “worried well”, CNBC said.
CNBC located 20 physicians at Apple via LinkedIn searches, while sources claimed as many as 50 doctors work there.
For example, Apple hired an orthopaedic surgeon, Sharat Kusuma, to manage its partnership with medical device maker Zimmer Biomet to study whether Apple technology can help patients recover from knee and hip replacement surgeries.
Many doctors are working on Apple Watch, which has a variety of different product groups focusing on health sensors. Some are on the health records group, helping develop the company’s software to aggregate patient medical information and store it securely, and others are doing research and development work.
There has also been a recent spate of hires into Apple’s AC Wellness primary care group, which treats employees near its headquarters.