(Bloomberg) — About 20 hypertension patients in Louisiana are living the future of health care. When it's time to take a medication, their Apple Watch taps their wrist and gives a visual display of the pill so they won't confuse it with other meds.
The patients are taking part in a trial of the gadget through Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. German software maker SAP SE is also testing and deploying the device to see if its real-time notification functions increase employee punctuality at meetings and help close sales deals.
The Apple Watch, introduced earlier this year, has yet to become a mainstream hit. Corporate clients could be key to fueling its growth, just as they've been for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad. The tech giant, which doesn't break out watch sales, probably sold 4.5 million of the devices last quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. That's tiny compared with the 48 million iPhones shipped in the period.
Business users accounted for just 2 percent of watch sales last quarter, according to Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics. Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) is likely to focus more on enterprises in the next one to two years, he said. By 2017, businesses will represent 15 percent of sales, according to Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
At Ochsner, doctors just want their patients to feel better. While mobile prompts can be set on smartphones, people may not have them in hand or hear them ring, only to discover later that they missed a dose. That scenario is less likely to happen with a wearable gadget, said Richard Milani, a physician who is leading the Apple Watch trial with the hypertension patients.
"We thought the watch was unique in that it had durability," Milani said in an interview. Tools that help people remember to take medication or engage them in exercise "can have a positive effect on many things including blood pressure," he said.
More businesses are starting to take notice. A Salesforce.com Inc. survey of 1,455 business professionals this year found more than a third use or plan to use wearable technology. Almost 80 percent of that group said the devices will be key to their future success.
