Oura is looking into how its smart ring could be used to detect brain hemorrhages after billionaire investor Bill Ackman suggested such a feature could have helped his daughter.
Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, shared this week that his 26-year-old daughter, Lucy, experienced a brain hemorrhage in February. He said data from her Oura Ring later helped determine when the hemorrhage had occurred, which was many hours before she was found unconscious, brought to a hospital, diagnosed, and rushed into surgery at around 3 a.m.
“Later that day, we determined from Lucy’s Oura ring that her hemorrhage had occurred around 9am, which meant that more than 19 hours had passed from the time of the hemorrhage to the completion of the surgery to release the pressure on her brain,” Ackman wrote in a lengthy X post on Wednesday, adding, “I only wish @ouraring had an alert for this kind of a medical event. Imagine it could call a family member if the wearer doesn’t cancel the alert.”
In response to Ackman’s post, Tom Hale, CEO of Oura, said Friday the company was looking into exactly that.
“I am glad that the insights from Lucy’s Oura Ring were able to give you and your family information that helped inform her care. I wish we had been able to predict or detect what happened,” Hale said in a reply on X. “I keep coming back to the question of whether Oura could have seen anything that might have helped and then alerted Lucy.”
Hale said he directed his team to investigate whether its ring could detect a medical event like this.
When reached for comment, Oura directed Business Insider to Hale’s post.
The Oura Ring is among the most popular wearable wellness trackers on the market. The ring tracks metrics such as heart rate, sleep stages, body temperature, and daily movement, though the company website states that the ring is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, monitor, or prevent medical conditions.
Ackman said his daughter, who was in a coma for several weeks, spent six months in the hospital and is still recovering. He said she has regained her cognition and is making progress on walking and speaking, but that she has not regained her vision.
Ackman announced that he and his wife, designer Neri Oxman, were launching the Ackman Oxman Institute, a nonprofit focused on brain research, recovery, and longevity.
“We have learned from Lucy that the brain can recover from even catastrophic injury,” he said. “There is so much more work to be done as the mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Kim Schewitz contributed reporting.
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