Jiří Filip At least five people from the Czech Republic have already been helped by the Apple Watch to diagnose and start treating a serious health problem. Four years ago, Oborová zdravotno pojišťovna, as the first and so far the only one, opened the possibility for its clients to have the ECG recording from the Apple Watch verified by a certified cardiologist. The watch itself, based on its algorithms, evaluates whether the recorded ECG is normal or whether something in it indicates a problem. Regardless of the result of this automatic evaluation, PWD clients can send the recording from the watch via the application of the insurance company VITAKARTA to MDT-Medical Data Transfer, the International Center for Telemedicine, where the recording will be evaluated by a doctor within 24 hours at the latest. Clients of the insurance company have this service free of charge.
And the doctors of MDT-Medical Data Transfer have already advised five clients of Oborová zdravotno pojišťovna, based on the ECG recording from the watch, to urgently seek a cardiologist. Although recording an ECG from a watch is significantly simpler than a standard multi-lead ECG in the doctor's office, it can highlight some serious heart rhythm disorders, especially atrial fibrillation. It does not immediately threaten a person's life, but reduces performance and quality of life, and in the long term increases the risk of a stroke, heart failure, and roughly doubles the relative risk of death. The characteristic of this chronic disease is that it manifests itself only in short episodes at first. So a person feels unpleasant discomfort for a while, but it disappears before long. When he then visits a cardiologist, the disease may not show up even during a longer ECG Holter examination, when a person has ECG electrodes stuck to him for the whole day.
It's different with a wristwatch. You also get them for the convenience of discreet notifications on incoming phone calls, messages or even reading emails. So when he has them on his hands and begins to experience health problems, he can immediately take an EKG recording and immediately send it to a doctor for evaluation. However, the industry health insurance company, as well as Apple itself, warn that the watch does not recognize acute health problems, in particular, it has no way of recording an impending heart attack. "I have no doubt that the healthcare industry will move towards an ever-wider deployment of wearable electronics. Even on our online evaluation system of the ECG recording from the Apple Watch, it is shown that it undoubtedly brings medical value. At Oborová zdravotno pojišťovna, we are ready for the development of wearable medical electronics and we will continue to open the doors to it in everyday practice in the Czech Republic as well," says Radovan Kouřil, CEO of Oborová zdravotní pojišťovna.
The branch health insurance company has therefore also included the Apple Watch 4 and 5, which can already record EKGs, in the list of things, examinations and procedures that it contributes to its clients. In addition, the PWD does not have a fixed contribution amount. This is governed by the bonus credits on each client's account. PWD credits them, for example, for updating the client's online health profile, for checking that doctors have correctly prescribed the care provided to the client, for preventive visits to the dentist or also for the number of steps that clients take per month as part of the event www.kazdykrokpomaha.cz Oborová zdravotno pojišťovna also motivates its clients to donate blood, where it assigns 1 credits for two blood draws per year and possibly another 000 credits to people awarded the Medal of Prof. MD Jan Janský or the Golden Cross of the CČK. On the basis of the same credit collection system, last year, for example, OZP paid out over CZK 2 to one client, in this case it was for new braces. In addition to the allowance for watches, PWD clients can also get a discount on the purchase of an Apple Watch when they buy it with a coupon generated on vitashop.ozp.cz.
Changing your health insurance company is completely simple and doesn't even take two minutes. In the case of Oborová zdravotno pojišťovna, it is also purely online. There is no need to go anywhere, there is no need to handle anything else with the existing health insurance company. The PWD will take care of everything herself. Changing your health insurance company is several orders of magnitude easier than changing your mobile operator or changing your bank. Online application is at www.chcidoozp.cz
Shouldn't the article be labeled Insurance PR? I doubt that the author, whom I also don't see anywhere, is such a lover of EKG measurements that he wrote this whole report about it...
What kind of rants is this... nothing to read here anymore... all just paid articles.
The watch itself can evaluate the FIS. And they can recommend a doctor's check-up themselves. All cardiologists accept the recording from the watch.