Apple Inc.’s health team is in crisis, hit by a series of high-profile departures over the last year as a result of internal disagreements over its direction, according to a report by CNBC.

The report cited anonymous sources as saying that some Apple employees feel that the company should be pursuing more ambitious health-related projects such as simplified insurance billing and a telemedicine service. But others disagree, and argue that Apple should stick with its simpler strategy of offering services for wellness and illness prevention, such as its ECG app for the Apple Watch.

CNBC cites eight people familiar with the situation as saying that “tension has been increasing in the healthcare team in recent months” with some employees becoming “disillusioned with the group’s culture.” Many of the employees are said to feel “sidelined” and “unable to move their ideas forward,” the report added.

Apple has previously said healthcare is one of its main focus areas as it looks to drive more revenue from services. Indeed, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook once stated that he hopes healthcare will someday be the company’s “greatest contribution to mankind.”

Apple’s health team is led by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams. Below him is former Adobe Inc. executive Kevin Lynch, who oversees software services such as Apple Health Records; Eugene Kim, responsible for the Apple Watch hardware; and Sumbul Desai, who oversees the ECG app, Apple Heart Study, and heart health strategy at the company.

The majority of the employee departures are said to be from the team that works under Desai, and include the following:

“Robin Goldstein, who was at Apple for more than two decades and most recently worked on the regulatory side of health before leaving in late 2017; Anil Sethi, a former Apple Health director who left to form a health-tech start-up in late 2017; Stephen Friend, a top Apple researcher who departed at the end of 2017; Charles Schlaff, who worked on Apple Watch before moving over to special projects and left in November of 2018, according to LinkedIn; Craig Mermel, who was in engineering at Apple Health and left to join Google Brain this February; and Yoky Matsouka, who was brought in to lead health but left after less than a year in 2016 and is now a vice president at Google.”

It’s not clear exactly why those employees left the company, but CNBC said a number of people at Apple were apparently “frustrated” with the negative reaction of doctors to the launch of its ECG app for Apple Watch. Those employees had pushed for a smaller and more focused product launch that would have involved getting more feedback from the medical community to ensure a more favorable response.

Analysts told SiliconANGLE that talk of a “crisis” in Apple’s health unit is likely overblown as such comings and goings of employees are fairly normal at large companies.

“Technology progress opens so many new and extraordinary doors for skilled workers, who can move easily to greener pastures to pursue their ambitions,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc. “But Apple remains a key player with its iOS platform and an attractive employer, so there is no need to fret about the future of Apple Health offerings.”

Pund-IT Inc. analyst Charles King said the employee departures and defections are to be expected in a company such as Apple, where the chain of leadership is somewhat tangled and where ambition often overshadows maturity. However, he questioned whether Apple was the right environment for healthcare experts to pursue their ambitions.

“I can certainly understand the company’s interest in and passion about making a difference for patients and medical professionals,” he said. “But I’m not sure that Apple’s culture or character is especially well-suited to the rigors of the healthcare industry and global markets.”

Photo: Apple