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