Wearables are a breath-taking invention for the healthcare industry. This revolutionized medical treatment comes with a host of gadgets capable of remote monitoring. Patients live far away from the city life and they feel helpless without direct doctor consultation facilities. The advancing technological systems have addressed this problem and experts have linked patients with medical practitioners using wearable devices.
The trendy devices can catch signals and vital signs. These signs detect if the user got any infection and if yes, what is the status of the internal damage. The conversation between Abi Miller and Dr David Nickelson has shed light on this matter to a great extent.
The Potential Market Of Wearable Devices
Over the last 10 years, wearable devices have taken the market by storm. With ample scope and scale the users now can get familiar with their health status from the comfort of home. A variety of wearable devices are available in the market ranging from wristbands to GPS fitness trackers. With each passing day, settings are getting developed and new features keep on amazing the wearers.
It is to mention, that digital healthcare devices are not only for general purposes, instead, but medical professionals can also widely implement this device to detect viral infections and disease management. This amazing system ties healthcare providers and patients together. No wonder, the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited the use of wearable technology globally. People are now afraid to step outside as this disease is extremely contagious. But with the help of remote fitness tracking, and telemedicine, treatment is getting easy nowadays.
Nearly 8000 US adults took part in a survey 43% of which happened to wear wearables at that time. Gladly more than 50% of the users were able to diagnose health conditions than the previous year.
Are You Wearing A Wearable Device?
If you are wearing a wearable device you’d be able to monitor your health’s condition. You can check if you have any infection or not. The VP of Healthcare at the Digital Health Consultancy Nerdery, Dr. David Nickelson states that it is a great shift where we are using these devices.
“In the past, wearables were primarily used by folks who are already interested in tracking health and wellness – athletes and the ‘worried well’,” he says. “Before Covid-19, while people with chronic diseases would often buy these devices, they would stop using them within 30 to 60 days. The Stanford report found that Covid-19 seems to have changed that.”
As per David, the adoption awareness doesn’t come from ‘worried well’. Instead, the wave is produced from average people who wish to take care of themselves with high-end technological advancements.
“Every piece of information we have seems to indicate that that’s going to stick after Covid-19 resolves itself, and that bodes very well for what wearables will be able to do going forward,” David says.
How To Use Machine Learning To Highlight Critical Events?
As per David, with each passing day, the wearable settings will alter while getting more sophisticated than before. The patients will receive extensive insights that providers can focus on while treating the diseases.
“For example, we’re working with a big medical device company right now, which has a tool for tracking cardiac arrhythmia,” he says. “Although it’s a wonderful tool that gives you tremendous amounts of data about every patient, physicians don’t have time to look at every data set and make sense of it.
“The next level of thinking there is, can we use machine learning to identify the incidents a physician should pay attention to? That’s where good design matters – creating interfaces and data visualization tools that patients and providers can use easily.”
You can trust
You can trust wearable gadgets to a great extent. Managing reports manually can be a tiresome process that could place multiple issues and flaws. In fact, a wrong number can cause unnecessary trouble during the treatment. For this reason, you can rely on wearable devices. You get,
- Accurate data
- Flawless reports
- Information security
- Cost-effectiveness
Improvements are taking place while enhancing data security. Companies like Fitbit and Apple have started pursuing US Food And Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for some selected consumer sensor technologies. This system will make medical officials rely on these devices.
“The big challenge here is that patients don’t trust big tech with that data,” says Nickelson. “Going back to the Rock Health/Stanford study, when you look at patient willingness to share data, the person they trust the absolute most is their individual physician.
“The next group they are potentially interested in sharing their data with is their health insurer. But big tech is near the bottom of the list of who consumers trust with that data.”
In this regard, if a technology company wants to extract the best from the wearables data, it can build a partnership with healthcare institutions or individual physicians.
Wearables Are The Future Of Healthcare
No wonder, wearable devices are the future of the healthcare system. The accurate reports, on-time infection detection, fast treatment are going to low down the risks and inconveniences soon.
In the end, David says, “My prediction is that consumers will recognize they need to take a more proactive approach to their own health and that digital tools can be an important part of doing that. So, I think the trend that started with Covid-19 is going to stick.”
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