The Apple Watch blood pressure feature lives in a gray area

Welcome to The Workup, a First Opinion column from Vishal Khetpal.

As a physician in the age of wearables, glancing at a patient’s wrist has become a natural, unspoken part of the physical exam. In most cases, finding an Apple Watch doesn’t mean much. But on occasion, it can offer a glimpse into a patient’s life — a heart rate trend, a sleep pattern, or a measure of activity.

So when Apple announced its much-anticipated latest iteration of the Apple Watch, I was intrigued. Two of its new models, the Series 11 and the Ultra 3, offer “hypertension notifications,” a new feature alerting users to trends of high blood pressures over the course of a month. Cleared rapidly by the Food and Drug Administration, the feature has found its way onto the wrists of millions of Apple Watch users in the United States. (It’s also available in older compatible Apple Watches through a software update.)