According to Business Insider, Apple is cutting back on work in its critical internal initiative for its health department. This could be a setback for the company's long term health goals as well as the departures of several staff members.
This is an internal initiative called "HealthHabit", which allows employees to log and monitor a variety of health metrics such as fitness goals and management of hypertension. They also have direct access to AC Wellness, a doctor group with Apple.
Business Insider reports that Apple is "scaling down" HealthHabit. The app had 50 dedicated employees. The report states that any employees who have worked previously on the app will be fired unless they are offered a new job within the company.
Over 50 employees spent a lot of time working on the app. Two people confirmed that some of them would be fired with severance if it isn't possible to find new roles within Apple within the next few weeks. Because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, the people requested anonymity. Insider has access to their identities.
Apple had originally hoped HealthHabit would enable experimentation with new health services. Apple Health is a division that includes hundreds of engineers, scientists and doctors. It oversees Apple's health features such as those found in the Apple Watch.
The report states that HealthHabit could continue to operate internally, even though it has had to cut back on staff and resources. The Wall Street Journal published a June report detailing how Apple piloted the idea to launch a healthcare service that was subscription-based with "Apple Doctors". However, the project, which was spearheaded by Dr. Sumbul Desai from Stanford University, has stalled.
Apple has been adding health features to the iPhone and Apple Watch over the years. Apple will continue to improve the capabilities of its Apple Watch by adding sensors such as temperature, blood glucose and blood alcohol monitoring to it over the next few years.
