The healthcare sphere is facing a dichotomy of sorts wherein the individual’s increased consciousness to prioritize health is at odds with his or her lack of time and/or willingness to seek professional opinion and treatment. While a large majority of individuals are seeking to proactively self-manage their health, they are turning to incomplete and inaccurate information gleaned from the Web and from lifestyle and fitness wearables, placing their health in jeopardy. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, Biotricity CEO & Founder, discusses how next generation clinical-grade wearables could help supply accurate, medically relevant data to improve chronic disease management.
Why wearables 1.0 failed to meet the mark
Health technology and fitness companies have developed a myriad of wearable fitness and lifestyle devices over the last several years; these devices do not deliver accurate, medically relevant data. Waqaas affirms, “The statistics [provided by fitness and lifestyle wearables] are often medically meaningless, non-specific and vague, and ultimately do not provide medical professionals with any real insight on actual symptoms or conditions that are present in the patient.” While technology is evolving to allow patients to self-manage their chronic conditions and proactively manage and monitor their health, the devices currently available are delivering inaccurate readings of essential vitals.
Wearables 2.0: Realizing the promise of clinical grade self-management
Next generation clinical-grade medical wearables will help address the gap left by the current generation of health/fitness wearable devices. A national survey of 1,000 respondents found that 88 percent of consumers believe that working in partnership with their healthcare professional will help improve their overall health and 78 percent would be more inclined to use a personal monitoring device if it were clinically accurate and easy to use. Waqaas explains: “By incorporating medically relevant, clinical-grade data into wearable solutions, problems related to both accuracy and reliability are eliminated and the devices can be seamlessly integrated into the world of medicine.” Integrating medically relevant data with wearables could also drive patient compliance by granting patients more autonomy in the management of their health. Patients would be able to measure their improvements and proactively make necessary lifestyle choices between doctor’s visits, thereby improving their health outcomes and giving doctors the opportunity to quickly adjust treatment plans.
Waqaas’ article is available on HITECH Answers. HITECH Answers is a community network site dedicated to educating healthcare providers and other stakeholders on the CMS HER Incentive Program, Meaningful Use, HIPAA, and other Federal Health IT initiatives.
