Dr. Rashid Riaz of Britain’s National Health Service saved a passenger’s life onboard a flight this month using an Apple Watch.
During the journey on 9 January, the woman, in her 70s, experienced shortness of breath, with the cabin crew then asking whether there was a healthcare worker on board.
Dr Riaz, 43, stepped forward to help, and, borrowing the device from a flight attendant, was able to use its native health-monitoring software to gauge the patient’s oxygen levels.
…The doctor knew the wrist-worn technology could further assist his medical inquiries, but he was not wearing his own device, which is when he sought one from staff.
“The Apple Watch helped me find out the patient had low oxygen saturation,” the medic explained.
While Apple has a disclaimer that blood oxygen levels are purely for ‘wellness’ and not medical use, they’re good enough for fieldwork and told the doctor he needed onboard oxygen for the passenger and allowed him to continue monitoring her oxygen saturation levels until the flight from Birmingham landed in Verona, Italy (it also gave him confidence that the aircraft didn’t need to divert).
If the NHS didn’t pay doctors so poorly, Riaz might not have chosen a destination only flown non-stop by Ryanair. So chalk that one up for underinvestment in the health service?
Great to talk at #CFONHS fringe event in #CPC22 I highlighted More than 27,000 nurses and midwives quit the NHS last year, with many blaming job pressures and also a record of over 6.5 million people waiting for treatment. pic.twitter.com/Z6k4Wla3WO
— Dr Rashid Riaz (@DrRashidRiaz) October 5, 2022
Unfortunately Apple Watches aren’t going to come with this monitoring technology for a bit. Apple reportedly plays a lot of dirty pool. Delta Air Lines plays hardball (with customers, partners, etc.) and I’ve written that in a 50-50 deal they take the hyphen. Apple seems to go further. But a world where they’re banned from selling Apple Watches that measure blood oxygen in the U.S. doesn’t seem like the right one. If they’ve infringed on another company’s patents, hold them liable for damages. Get that technology out there.
Ironically, the government just told Apple that it can’t have the pulse oximeter feature on its Apple watches because intellectual property or something. https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/apple-plans-pause-us-smartwatch-sales-ahead-biden-ruling-pulse-oximetry-tech-ban
Die peasant!
Cabin crew here. This is fairly standard practice and used routinely inflight during medical situations. Inflight medical gear provided by the airline is notoriously low quality.
As a flight paramedic of 20 years, this article is pretty much nonsense. While pulse oximetry can be helpful in certain instances, any clinician who cannot tell that a patient needs oxygen without a SpO2 reading has no business treating patients. Particularly in a commercial airplane with limited resources and options, a patient exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with hypoxia should be treated with high flow oxygen by mask. No Apple products required.
I too wish these little companies would stop using the courts to take away technology from the public. The bigger corporations who stole it should pay them commission, like a forced lease, but honestly when someone isn’t doing much of anything but holding patents on technology that they can’t reach the public with, it’s doing more of a disservice to the public by pulling it off the market, especially when we’ve been using it for a while. Sure I get that big companies shouldn’t be able to walk all over the little people, but at the same time the little people shouldn’t be able to prevent the public from getting the technology either. That’s why I’m in favor of restitution and compensation rather than removal.
This does not appear to be a case of some small company camping on technology and Apple jumping in to help mankind. Apple was talking with Masimo (the other company) about partnering while secretly negotiating with key people in the company to jump ship, move to Apple, and essentially steal tech from their employer on their way out.
If we’re OK with one company stealing tech from another because they can get it into a big market, then we need to shut up about China stealing our tech.
You forgot to add the postscript to the story. Upon landing, Ryanair charged the passenger a penalty oxygen fee of 200 GBP for failure to pre-book oxygen online. The doctor was thanked with a half-off coupon for one scratch-off lottery ticket.
“any clinician who cannot tell that a patient needs oxygen without a SpO2 reading has no business treating patients.”
Are you saying that you would just refuse to use this equipment even though it is available to you?
@ Thing 1, you have a point. Interestingly, the reason why intellectual property rights (trademarks, patents) are not enforced in China is because the information is considered beneficial to the people at large, and therefore, is property of anyone and everyone. In Chinese philosophy, it’s not so much what knowledge you have, but how you use that knowledge.
then you have all the lives Apple destroys with microwi-fi.
but some folks are so gullible and eat stories like this up.
Honestly, doctors are not badly paid in UK. Taxes are simpler. There is no state tax. Education is free. Expenses are lower and compared to the general population they are paid extremely well.
AND there is little to no malpractice risk. There is no overhead for billing. No worry about being paid ir not after the procedure is done, etc etc
Given what Doug says, it is typical American modern medicine. The doc had no clue, so he reached for a device. I have lost all confidence in American physicians. I have found those in other countries such as Panama, Ecuador and Chile to be much better.
It’s “MacGyver”.
When I think of “a MacGyver”, it’s more like taking the apple watch and modifying it to perform as an AED. Simply using something for a functioning it already has doesn’t qualify. Great that the doctor was aboard and manage to save someone though.