My question to you is simple. The answer, not so much…
How do you think Quantified Self and wearable technologies will affect the Health Care System in the years to come?
Will it be benificial or will it cause more problems than it will fix?
1 Like
There’s no doubt wearable technologies will be beneficial. The question is, beneficial to whom 
Yes, as Eric mentions, it’s a matter of perspective.
If the data is used by the insurance or health care companies to categorize people, it has its monetary benefits for them, but not necessarily for the patients or clients.
It’s gonna be an interesting process…
I think wearables and personal sensors will have a positive effect on healthcare. For example, it could reduce costs by enabling remote monitoring and potentially improve diagnosis (through automated anomaly detection or more specialized healthcare providers monitoring patients).
As Eric pointed out, it remains to be seen if doctors want (or can rely on) patient generated data. In my opinion, a doctor already asks me “how are you feeling” or “where does it hurt”. A wearable help collect some measurements more easily, unfortunately, people need to be sure they are using the wearable correctly.
I think there will be the possibility of some analytics and AI that could create alerts for further follow up. The danger here is that we get too used to the tool to identify abnormalities.
Even if doctors wanted this data, I don’t think they have the tools necessary to handle it.
I also think privacy and protection will become more important.
Very interesting topic! As usual, comments are focussing more on potential negative effects or threats than on positive possibilities.
I think Brian is on an interesting track: using wearables to gather data that could be continuously analyzed by algorithms that warn beforehand of upcoming exacerbations, this would save a tremendous amount of money and improve health and quality of life for many patients with chronic diseased like COPD and heart failure.
Health care today is built for acute care, we need to move to more continuous, personal health monitoring that enables prevention of disease.
Hi Everyone
I’m new to the forum and would love to put forward my opinion on this question.
I personally believe wearable health tracking will have a hugely positive impact on health, especially in the medical fields as Doctors begin to adopt the latest wearable technologies into their clinics.
Clinical trials and FDA approvals will be vital to adoption rates of wearable data for medical diagnosis and monitoring. Doctor’s really want to see a range of trials proving their effectiveness before ever implementing them into their patient care plans.
Once the technology grows it will eventually scale extensively into the medical field and have a hugely positive impact on patient engagement, adherence and outcomes.
I truly believe in the technology, not necessarily in its current form but in the next few years I think we’ll see some amazing developments.
I’m definitely keeping my finger on the pulse as to the impact these wearables will have on health outcomes across the board.