Member-only story
Apple Watch Saves American Healthcare?
If it means reporters asking better healthcare questions, then yes.
In 2018, Good Morning America featured 18-year-old Deanna Recktenwald’s Apple Watch story. While sitting in church, her watch told her to seek immediate medical care because her resting heart rate had spiked to 160 beats-per-minute. Her mother, a registered nurse, took her pulse and confirmed the watch’s reading. She rushed Deanna to an Urgent Care facility, where it soared to 190 beats-per-minute.
Right here in the story, I asked myself why wasn’t she calling her daughter’s primary care doctor? (It’s a loaded question.)
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “On a Sunday morning? Really, Bullwinkle?” Yet, I know it’s possible because it’s happening now, which I will come to shortly.
The urgent care facility took her vitals and told them to rush to an emergency room. After running additional tests, Tampa General Hospital found she had kidney failure and admitted her for three days.
So, had she been able to speak with a primary care doctor, they’d have likely avoided the urgent care stop, and gone to the ER. Note: Even that’s not a guarantee given today’s catastrophic primary care situation.
More questions: Assuming she had one, did her primary care doctor miss the signs? Why? Was she seeing multiple physicians with no focal point for all her care? Why?
Primarily Primary
The answers start with America’s system not allowing nor enabling primary care physicians the time and long-term relationships with patients. Today’s primary care is still an assembly line in a personalized age. Lesson learned? Physicians work in a system. Start there. (Here’s some background on that point.)
Another reason is the current fee-for-service business model, which promotes sickcare, instead of preventing problems. Americans wait until it hits the fan, then seek care. Usually after visiting Dr. Google or Nurse Facebook…
