Samsung is developing a “health hub” designed to help patients share data with their doctors and stay informed about medical advice between visits.
The company’s plans, reported Monday by Bloomberg and confirmed in a Samsung press release, center on using data collected from its Galaxy devices to create a unified platform for personal health management.
The new features are being released this month through a beta program available to Galaxy Watch users in the U.S. and South Korea.
Not only would the hub enable physicians to access data about patients gathered from their Samsung devices, but it will also provide patients with reminders about health goals to be met between doctor visits.
The hub is expected to integrate with Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Watch and One UI 8, which introduce new features aimed at improving sleep quality, heart health, fitness, and long-term wellness.
“Patients often find it challenging to track all the advice provided by their healthcare providers and integrate it into their daily routines,” explained Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and a practicing surgeon.
“This will serve as a helpful reminder and also facilitate their active participation in their own health care,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Dr. Hon Pak, head of Samsung’s digital health team, told Bloomberg that there is a lot of health and fitness innovation in the market, but it’s often siloed.
“We think there’s a responsibility and a potential for bringing the experience into an ecosystem so that the users have a more simple experience rather than having 10 different apps to manage your condition,” he said.
Personalized and Precise Insights
Samsung recently unveiled several new health features powered by Galaxy AI, designed to encourage better long-term habits. These include Bedtime Guidance for optimal sleep routines, Vascular Load tracking to monitor cardiovascular stress during sleep, a Running Coach that builds personalized training plans based on performance, and an Antioxidant Index to measure carotenoids in the skin for healthy aging.
While there aren’t many details on this hub yet, such a device fits into Samsung’s broader strategy and vision for creating an intelligent health platform, which aims to bridge fragmented healthcare data from multiple sources and create a more unified and deeper understanding of personal health, said Andrew Zignani, a senior research director at ABI Research, a global technology intelligence firm headquartered in Oyster Bay, N.Y.