Can you wear healthcare? - 3 trends to 'watch'

As technology advances and hardware shrinks, there are a number of interesting trends in electronics that will have an impact on healthcare as we know it today. Fitness trackers are an obvious starting point, but no one has really overcome the HIPAA, security, and big brother concerns. We are also starting to see the beginning of an explosion in wearable sensors in acute care settings. Based on the trajectory in the space, here are 3 interesting trends to watch for:

Incentivizing access to consumer data

The race is on to do get at consumer health data and someone is ultimately going to pay consumers for access to this info. Whether a payor through discounts or an ACO who pays outright, there is enough value to improving the health of the population to justify applying monetary benefits to get consumers on board. Just look at the recent test run by Mt Sinai, where they paid patients to take their medication - Mt Sinai App Pays Patients to Take Pills

Sensing migrates into smart phones

Many companies exist who have developed wearable consumer technologies, like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, or Motiv Ring, but these products aren’t adopted widely enough to offer enough customers for healthcare technology vendors to bet their futures on them. Giants like Apple and Google are also moving into healthcare, so it is only a matter of time before all of the sensing goes into the phone itself. There are already vendors like Early Sense, who deliver sensing technologies without actual human contact or Leaf Healthcare, who are using geospatial positioning to intelligently protect patients and it is plain to see contactless monitoring could live in the handset itself. Even some of the monitoring that requires contact may find its way into the smartphone, like a glucose monitor that checks the consumer whenever the phone is unlocked.  

Prescribing apps to monitor patients

Once the large vendors have access to consumer device information and the sensing technology finds itself in the handset itself, it only makes sense that our doctors will start prescribing phone apps for their patients. Imagine that you have just finished a procedure and you need to eat certain meals or walk around every day to improve mobility. Your physician will prescribe you a set of apps for your smart phone and your care will be delivered though software to your pocket. Your phone will monitor your blood sugar level throughout the day to make sure you have been eating properly, your heart rate to make sure you are getting around, and your snoring to check for apnea.  All of these functions will simply be turned on and off by your physician and enabled on your phone.

Who knows what else the future will hold, but here are three trends that we should soon see in healthcare.  Do you have other examples where you see wearable and consumer health going? Please leave a comment below and feel free to share this article.

Andrew Robinson - Strategy / Technology / Healthcare - #ONO / #SNO