Apple lends a hand in knee and hip replacement clinical study
Zimmer Biomet has created the app called mymobility that uses the Apple Watch to connect patients with their care teams during prep and recovery of common joint replacement surgeries. This app will also be used in a mymobility clinical study, which aims to understand the effect of the app’s use on patient outcomes and costs.
According to the company, the study will be one of the largest evidence-gathering clinical studies in orthopedic history. The study will combine patient-reported feedback with continuous health and activity data from the app. This will provide insights into the role the app and the Apple watch can play in the standard of care for these common surgeries.
The study hopes to enroll as many as 10,000 patient participants from the US.
A virtual and continuous care team
More than one million knee and hip replacements occur annually in the US and the number is expected to grow to 3.5 million by 2035, according to Zimmer.
With the continued rise of knee and hip replacements, there is a lack of standardization in care, according to the company – and the rising number of surgeries relates to a rising cost to the US healthcare system.
A Zimmer Biomet spokesperson told us, “The current pre-op and post-op process for joint replacement could require several office visits, dozens of physical therapy sessions, and excessive paperwork patients are forced to manage on their own.”
The company said that the app will work to address these issues through the ongoing connection which in turn, will hopefully reduce anxiety around the procedure and recovery. The companies describe the app as a virtual and continuous care team on a patient’s wrist.
The app allows surgeons to send education and therapy reminders directly to the patient’s Apple watch and monitors the patient activity levels throughout the days and weeks while they are both prepping and recovering from surgery.
