Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is launching the nation’s first pediatric sleep registry powered by Apple Watch data, alongside a newly developed data collection app.
The hospital developed the new app in collaboration with graduates of Apple’s Developer Academy to train machine learning algorithms to detect sleep disorders, according to an April 22 news release from CHLA.
“There are not enough pediatric sleep study beds in the country, which inevitably results in delayed care for children,” Eugene Kim, MD, principal investigator and chief of pain medicine at CHLA, said in the release. “In looking into solutions to solve this, it was clear that no application currently on the market would give us the immense amount of raw data needed to properly conduct sleep studies on children at home without specialized equipment.”
The hospital is enrolling children already scheduled for a polysomnography study to test the app and wear an Apple Watch. Existing Apple technologies, including HealthKit, are integrated into the app to help clinicians identify risks, such as the need for intensive care unit admission after surgery.
