Wearable Technology and Its Potential Impact on the Healthcare Industry

Tracy Moon’s article “Wearable Technology and Its Potential Impact on the Healthcare Industry” was featured in Becker’s Hospital Review on November 14, 2014.

Wearable technology has the capability of transforming the healthcare industry. Wearable technology cannot only provide information to experts in the medical field about patients in remote areas invaluable to delivering effective medical treatment, particularly where it would not otherwise be available, but it also can provide additional information. For example, it can give healthcare providers information useful in making accurate diagnoses collected while a patient is engaged in normal day-to-day activities over a period of time, supplementing information obtained during the patient examination. The decreasing cost of wearables and their ability to collect and analyze massive amounts of information and to transmit it easily via Bluetooth or wireless technology will most likely accelerate its acceptance and use in the healthcare industry.

In the article, Tracy examines how the advances in wearable technology will affect the health industry as a whole.

For example, technology experts expect to see the introduction of health applications and wearable devices that include the ability to non-invasively determine blood sugar levels and obtain other personal health-related data. For these reasons, healthcare providers can expect to find more and more patients wearing wearable technology devices capable of providing a substantial amount of information about the health and fitness of patients.

Advances in wearable technology and health applications, the increasing availability of less expensive wearables, incorporating more health-related features and more sensors and consumer interest present an opportunity for the healthcare industry to improve the quality of medical care that cannot be ignored. The success or failure of employing wearable technology to improve medical care, however, hinges at least in part, on whether the healthcare industry judicially appraises the benefits and risks of wearable technology use in relation to objectives and goals before, rather than after, it becomes common.

To read the full article, please visit Becker’s Hospital Review.