Apple continues its (so far successful) journey to connecting the brand to active and healthy living, with the acquisition of Gliimpse, a startup that simplifies the management of health records for patients.
The company, established in 2013, offers to “use your digital health to care for your analog life.” It allows users to collect, manage and share their and their families’ medical data, and even has a planned “pay it forward” option, to help find global cures. According to CrunchBase, the company had raised $1 million in a seed funding round back in February 2015.
The acquisition happened earlier this year, but both Apple and Gliimpse kept quiet.
The news, originally reported by Fast Company earlier today, has officially marked Apple’s recent expansion into the healthcare industry.
But this does not mean we didn’t see it coming. Earlier this month, rumors have surfaced about a patented health-focused wearable device created by Apple. Moreover, since 2014, has been offering a wide range of healthcare – related solutions, such as HealthKit, CareKit, and ResearchKit – all go hand in hand with Gliimpse’s vision.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has also been talking about the company’s interest in healthcare recently. In a recent interview with Fast Company, he said: “We’ve gotten into the health arena and we started looking at wellness, that took us to pulling a string to thinking about research, pulling that string a little further took us to some patient-care stuff, and that pulled a string that’s taking us into some other stuff.”
“When you look at most of the solutions, whether it’s devices, or things coming up out of Big Pharma, first and foremost, they are done to get the reimbursement [from an insurance provider]. Not thinking about what helps the patient. So if you don’t care about reimbursement, which we have the privilege of doing, that may even make the smartphone market look small.”
This is great news for Apple and Gliimpse, but they are not the only winners in this story. As more and more industries and companies make the shift from product-centric to customer-centric approach to business – the real winners here are the customers.
According to findings from Google Think, about 77% of American adults have gone online to investigate a medical condition. This highlights the fact that a more informed patient with access to information provided by digital healthcare systems will make better decisions, preventing serious health problems in the future.
As the healthcare industry becomes more digital, it’s more important than ever to make it as simple as possible for the user to access and analyze information.