Stanford University is launching a new health program to explore the possibilities potentially offered by the Apple Watch in the health field (via Cult of Mac.)
The prestigious American university will distribute one thousand Apple Watches to its professors and researchers, who will also have access to a pool of $10,000 USD in funding to carry out their work.
The Stanford Center for Digital Health, part of the School of Medicine, is accepting applications for its inaugural seed grant program for the Apple Watch. The program is designed to “stimulate and support creative uses” of the Apple Watch in the healthcare field, with “high impact projects” positively influencing the study population or the clinical workflow of particular interest to the center.
“This seed grant program is designed to stimulate and support creative uses of the Apple Watch to address important issues in healthcare,” the Center for Digital Health’s website notes. “We are particularly interested in high impact projects that will positively influence the selected study population and/or clinical workflow.”
The program, which will be put in place as of April for a minimum duration of one year, will allow research for the further development of new tools dedicated to healthcare, optimized for the Apple Watch.
In order to be accepted into the program, proposals need to incorporate the Apple Watch into the research in one of two ways. The first is to take advantage of the sensing capabilities of the device. The other option is to use the communication and notification features of the Apple Watch to create changes in behavior and to coach users.
While there are many watchOS applications that fall into the healthcare category, hopefully Stanford’s research can bring the Apple Watch’s use in the field to the next level.
Last year, Apple hired a top diabetes doctor from Stanford to work on the iPhone maker’s HealthKit, while the university was also one of the first to trial the latter back in 2014.
