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| Apple's Cupertino, CA headquarters. |
Apple ($AAPL) is looking to bring on new staff to take its med tech initiatives to the next level--and to make sure that it doesn't get burned along the way.
The tech giant recently posted a job listing for a "privacy counsel" focused on "HIPAA, Health," Apple said on its website. The ideal candidate would work with the company's engineering teams and advise Apple on privacy issues for potential acquisitions.
The person who's hired will flesh out "privacy by design reviews and projects," will help with "privacy complaints and breaches" and "advise on the privacy aspects of licensing and procurement deals and corporate acquisitions," Apple said.
The Cupertino, CA-based company is setting the bar high for potential candidates. Apple wants someone with 5 to 9 years of experience "at a top-tier law firm or business" who has gleaming academic credentials and health privacy expertise, it said in the listing.
A listing for a HIPAA specialist could mean that the company wants to expand into med tech in a way that would include handling sensitive medical data, Business Insider points out. HIPAA compliance comes with its own set of obstacles, and the company usually assigns that task to third-party app developers.
But with more med tech ambitions on the horizon, the company could start taking more of the reins. Apple's job posting came a day before Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated the company's commitment to med tech.
Cook highlighted the Apple Watch as a cornerstone to Apple's strategy in the field. "One day, this is my prediction, we will look back and we will wonder: how can I ever have gone without the watch?" Cook said at a recent conference in Amsterdam.
The company sees "enormous" potential in healthcare, Cook said, and Apple has already gotten the ball rolling on some med tech initiatives. In 2014, it rolled out HealthKit, a consumer-facing platform that collects data to provide a better picture of an individual's health.
Apple has also launched ResearchKit and CareKit. ResearchKit helps developers create apps that collect user health data for research purposes. CareKit allows patients to manage their health electronically by tracking symptoms and how often individuals take their meds.
"If you think about some of society's biggest problems and challenges, one of the ones that we are really focused on is health," Cook said. "And arguably the health care system can be made much simpler, can have much better results, you can have patients that really feel like customers … and have systems and applications that bring out the best in the medical professionals."
- here's Apple's job posting
- read the Business Insider story