Apple is diving deeper into health technology, as it just came to light that it acquired health and wellness startup Gliimpse, which collects medical information and turns it into comprehensible, easy-to-read patient profiles.
It's not unusual that this acquisition went under the radar until now, as Apple has a habit of gobbling up smaller companies all the time without making a big fuss or a public announcement about it.
That is also the case with the Gliimpse acquisition, as Apple has made no mention of it in the past. Nevertheless, Fast Company discovered that Apple had acquired Gliimpse and got confirmation from Apple that the deal occurred earlier this year.
For those unfamiliar with Gliimpse, the startup set out to transform that hard-to-interpret medical data into easy-to-read profiles, acting as a personal health platform that collects fitness and health-related bits of data to allow users to keep track of their health data in a format that they understand.
"We've built a magical machine. It takes incomprehensible electronic medical records and turns them into understandable, standardized, coded elements (Loinc, RxNorm, CPT, ICD and Snomed), and terminology that both humans and machines can easily understand and use," reads the description on Gliimpse's website.
Gliimpse basically aims to allow anyone to manage their health records in a simple manner and share the data securely with people they trust. Users can make journal entries on a daily basis, noting their state of mind, levels of pain, lab results and other such information that helps them keep track of various stages. Compiling a journal may help users more easily provide their physician with more details about their health. These aspects set Gliimpse apart from other health upkeep apps such as Apple Health because Gliimpse is also suited for users with more serious ailments like cancer, diabetes and more.
Acquiring Gliimpse reiterates Apple's efforts and commitment to make progress in the digital health field, and may also bolster claims that the company is gearing up to launch a new piece of hardware focused on health tracking. The gadget may be a new Apple Watch set to hit the scene next year, or it could be some other wearable device in its own product category, as was rumored earlier this month.
Apple has yet to detail its reasons for purchasing Gliimpse, but all signs seem to point to a more health-focused future for Apple devices. As always, we'll post more information as soon as it becomes available.
