There have been lots of heartwarming, amazing stories about the Watch catching aFib and helping people out.
I'm wondering about the flip side… where the Watch suggests or indicates aFib and it turns out NOT to be.
I'd imagine lots of anxiety could be created, unnecessary trips to the ER, etc. We read often about dramatic health saves… but not about the health scares!
Would like to hear from people about that side of the equation.
Please share any stories that created unnecessary concerns, worries.
There is often a trade-off in medical testing and where thresholds are set… Set a stringent test and you can dramatically reduce false positives, but increase your false negatives. Catch all the cases with a more relaxed criterion and you increase false positives.
Of course, with aFib, we're talking algorithms and pattern matching, and not simple thresholds, but a similar issue still exists.
I realize that better safe than sorry is more important than a false sense of security, but am interested in knowing how often needless scares arise…
I'm wondering about the flip side… where the Watch suggests or indicates aFib and it turns out NOT to be.
I'd imagine lots of anxiety could be created, unnecessary trips to the ER, etc. We read often about dramatic health saves… but not about the health scares!
Would like to hear from people about that side of the equation.
Please share any stories that created unnecessary concerns, worries.
There is often a trade-off in medical testing and where thresholds are set… Set a stringent test and you can dramatically reduce false positives, but increase your false negatives. Catch all the cases with a more relaxed criterion and you increase false positives.
Of course, with aFib, we're talking algorithms and pattern matching, and not simple thresholds, but a similar issue still exists.
I realize that better safe than sorry is more important than a false sense of security, but am interested in knowing how often needless scares arise…