HEALTH: Apple Watch ECG vs. hospital EKG: Not the results I was expecting.

The notification on the Apple Watch also said I should contact my doctor if I didn’t feel well or if I continued to get the same result. Users can share these results as a PDF with their doctors, but luckily my doctor happened to be standing next to me.

The EKG on the Apple Watch directly coincided with the results of the printed-out hospital EKG. There were intermittent early beats coming from the lower chamber of my heart.

“This would be really useful [as a way] to screen for this or to have the first understanding that you have these early heart beats,” Marcus said. “What’s missing in the single lead Apple Watch is the information that tells us more specifically where exactly this is coming from.”

Dr. Marcus says I probably won’t die from the irregularity he discovered in my EKG that day, but he did ask me to schedule a follow-up to discuss my early heartbeat, something I likely wouldn’t have caught without this kind of test.

I always get pushback for promoting these stories, but I’m a firm believer in getting as much information to the consumer — and in this case, patient — as possible. The Apple Watch Series 4’s one-lead EKG monitor isn’t nearly as good as what you’ll find in your doctor’s office, but it’s only a first-generation product… and it is getting people to the doctor who never knew they had a heart condition.

So more devices like this, please.