Apple Reportedly Conducting Research Into Health Coaching, Blood Glucose Management

Apple is conducting new research that could result in more targeted health coaching including assistance with blood glucose monitoring.

A new report from My Healthy Apple notes that a new patent approved yesterday contains language about notifying users in a more effective way, rather than the current way notifications are set up, as well as a potential “health coach” feature that would help users track their health goals.

“A health coach can work with one or more participants over a series of sessions (e.g., a set of days (e.g., 10 days)) to monitor health-related events and data, such as diet and blood glucose data to assist the one or more participants with better understanding their physiological reaction to health-related events and, potentially, to assist the one or more participants with modifying their behavior to improve their health,” explains the patent. “For example, a coach can work with a pre-diabetic participant to, in a first session, first understand the impact of various events, that the participant would log, on their blood glucose. Ability to connect with the coach is easy via a “Connect” tab on the bottom of the screen in the Health coaching app.”

Additionally, the same patent talks about habit tracking to both encourage users to find new habits and avoid bad ones:

In some instances, the habit challenge can specify one or more actions (e.g., “EAT PROTEIN BAR IMMEDIATELY AFTER EXERCISE”) that are to be performed throughout the day to meet the challenge, while in other cases the habit challenge can specify one or more actions that should be avoided to meet the challenge (e.g., “DO NOT DRINK SUGARED SODA”).

While it is unclear when or if the feature will roll out to users, it is something to keep an eye on as Apple ventures further into the health area.

Take a look at the entire report with more specific details here.