So what is the wearables ecosystem and how does it play a role in our day-to-day lives? Currently this term is focused on a myriad of watches and wrist bands that have exploded in popularity in the consumer market – but this is wrong in the macro perspective. Wearables can be classified roughly into 4 1/2 categories (the ½ category is very new but growing in leaps and bounds). These products take advantage of the latest advances in miniature accelerometers, gyroscopes, batteries, touch screens and sensors.
As this blog is more healthcare oriented, I will put to the wayside the “infotainment” and “Industrial/Military” ecosystems and emphasize the 2 1/2 that are of importance to us. The term “healthcare system” as we know it, is dead and can rather be identified as an ecosystem made up of interlocking interested parties – and this is important front page news. New forces have taken over be they m-Health, telemedicine, d-health, m2m health and many other abbreviations. Arriving at the clinic “because I am not feeling well” is the practice of very antediluvian medicine, and highly frowned upon in the modern consensus of m-Health. The patient, or the owner of the data, will come to the doctor with a full batch of biostatistics and biodata from their own data collection devices. This new generation or stance, is slowly catching a toehold and the profession needs to be well on board to cope with it.
We are very well informed on the Fitness and Wellness personal data collection devices as they seem to be the most popular – these are the Fitbits, Jawbone, Nike and Garmin’s of the world which assist us in our day to day living. The truth is, that this has changed drastically the way many of us eat, exercise and live as now we monitor our daily activities and exercise, steps walked, heart rate, pace of activity, stairs climbed, the quality and quantity of our sleep, food we eat, calories we consume and burn, etc. With an objective of facilitating health and wellness, our day has now become mired in quotidian details. Growth of these devices is incredible “the annual smart wearable healthcare market volume will grow from $2 billion in 2014 to $41 billion in 2020, a compound annual growth rate of 65%” according to SoreonResearch. Moreover, according to the CDW Healthcare, “Wearable technology could lower hospital costs by as much as 16% over the course of 5 years, and remote patient monitoring technologies could save the global healthcare system $200 billion over the next 25 years.” This is great news for us all.
So, as we can see, the Healthcare ecosystems integrate in virtually all aspects of our daily life. The interaction or crossover between health/wellness/fitness is only transient, and at days end, all measure up to the same conclusion – “I am using a wellness device to keep fit and healthy.” We know that 88% of physicians “want patients to monitor their health parameters at home” according to the Orange Healthcare, and 56% of patients want to share their tracked data with their physician but the sad part is that doctors do not know what to do with so much information (and the privacy issue is also a serious problem). Patients today are highly interested in taking charge of their own healthcare decisions allowing the ecosystem to grow. In this contemporary ecosystem, the habitué (for lack of a better term) possesses a new importance by the way of “the holders of the data” as we are now living in the shackles and restraints of neoteric technology and m2m dominance. While there is abundant prattle on the net with regards m-Wellness, there are very few examples of its success. m-Health, on the other hand, everybody wants it, but there are difficulties, especially technological. Wellness (in its present position), is just not enough and we are finding that out with great haste – the future is definitely m-Health, and this discussion will be continued in a later article.
*For the sake of disclosures, I own (and use) today an Apple 2 Watch; Withings Wireless BP Monitor; Polar HR Monitor; Under Armour; Adidas_1 Smart Ride Running Shoes. In the field of Apps, I use the Apple Health (I think the best App around); Myfitnesspall; Under Armour Record; Sleep++; Polar Beat.
