Apple scales back internal health program for employees

More than 50 employees could lose their jobs…

What you need to know

Apple is reportedly cutting back on an internal health project.
HealthHabit was an app for employees to log fitness goals and more.

A new report says Apple is scaling back an internal health initiative for employees, with 50 jobs apparently at risk.

From Business Insider:

Apple is scaling back a key project in its health division, four people familiar with the matter told Insider.
It’s an app called HealthHabit that Apple employees can use to log fitness goals, manage hypertension, and talk to clinicians and coaches at AC Wellness, the doctors’ group that Apple works with.
More than 50 employees were spending a significant amount of time working on the app. Some of them will be laid off with severance if they’re unable to find other roles inside Apple in the next few weeks, two of the people said. The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. Their identities are known to Insider.

The report notes how HealthHabit sprung from Apple’s takeover of Crossover Health in 2018, using its clinics to experiment with new health services. The report says that going forward, Health Habit could be completely shut down or continue under the watch of fewer staff. It had previously been hoped that Apple might even roll out the feature beyond its walls to customers:

Apple has been piloting coaching programs for workers with hypertension in tandem with AC Wellness for the past few years, and employees viewed HealthHabit as a logical next step to bring that work to life, three people said. If HealthHabit had success internally, it could have been a product for customers one day, the people said.
That would be similar to how Amazon built a primary care service internally before launching it for other businesses.