Success Stories
The Apple Heart Study was a prospective, single arm, experimental study using participants wearing an Apple Watch with the Apple Heart Study app.
Its purpose was to assess and evaluate the ability of the Apple Watch’s algorithm to identify atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter (AF) and guide subsequent clinical evaluation.
Examples of the notifications that participants in the Apple Heart Study received. Courtesy of Apple
Atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heart rhythm, is a leading cause of stroke and hospitalization in the United States. In this Apple Heart Study (AHS) sponsored by Apple Inc., the QSU partnered with Stanford researchers to demonstrate ability of the Apple Watch to identify irregular heart rhythms. The QSU designed the entire study, served as the Data Coordinating Center to ensure that data was collected accurately, and validated every piece of data received, as well as were responsible for data management and data analyses.
Over 400,000 participants were recruited into the study in just eight months which made the study the largest virtual study to date. The QSU data scientists set up a system to handle and validate all that data at a very fast pace. Ultimately, 20TB of data was collected, so handling and analyzing big data was another challenge. Because this was the first pragmatic trial ever run, the QSU team also had to deal with patients re-enrolling via the app and had to develop an algorithm to handle duplicated data to ensure trial integrity. Several publications have come from this project which highlight in more extensive detail some of these issues, how they were solved, and other lessons learned.
