Medical Wearables - A New Craze or a Haze

 
High-tech mobility is on the rise. The healthcare industry is soaking up new innovations such as electronic health records, tele-health apps, and wearable technologies to improve efficiency and health care quality. They estimate wearable technologies to reach $100 billion by 2023.

The list of Medical wearables is non-exhaustive, at the time I am typing this article one medical wearables might be being launched somewhere… so I collected just a few drops from the ocean of medical technology to talk about.

Byteflies Sensor Dot

This Oreo-sized device attaches to a person’s body and collects a wealth of biometric health data. Squeezed into a package the size of a fingertip, the sensors built into the Byteflies Sensor Dot measure the following signals: photoplethysmogram (PPG), electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration, motion, and electrodermal activity (EDA).



ARIA Spectacles
Aria helps sight-impaired and blind people by outfitting a user with a smart glasses kit. The kit allows the wearer to establish audio contact with an Aria Explorer. Through a built-in camera and headphone, the Explorer can tell the user the cost of a bag of apples, the title of a book as he navigates through his daily routine.




AIRO, a startup based in Canada has developed a wrist sensor that can track nutrition, stress, sleep and exercise. Medgadget has recently covered several wrist sensors, but this is the first which claims that it can track nutrition by using optical spectroscopy. The wrist sensor projects light from an LED and detects metabolites in the bloodstream associated with food intake based on their optical signatures. 



Sky Labs is a vital signal big data based preventative healthcare company. They are developing a ring-type Cardio Tracker, CART to detect and monitor atrial fibrillation difficult to detect in a hospital. By wearing CART on a finger, CART continuously detects atrial fibrillation with 98% accuracy. The results are available in the smartphone app in real time. 

Clearing the Haze ….Is there a darker side to medical wearables?

 

Battery life 
Battery life is one of the most crucial challenges of wearables. Most devices only work in combination with a smartphone. This means that at least two devices need to be charged and failure to charge one results in the inability to use the other. Remembering to charge your smartphone was less of a hassle and now yet another device?   Think about how complicated it is for an elderly person to fiddle with a hearing aid daily, or for a professional runner to plug in multiple pieces of tiny wearable sensors–each into its own charger.

Is your wearable ‘doctor’ as astute as your GP??
While most wearables allow for customization of a user’s data they need to be better developed for actual accuracy and flexibility. Sensors need to be properly positioned and data needs to be better analyzed.

Where is my data?!
Wearables need to be developed further in order to limit their use and prevent theft. For instance, touch screen and voice detection need to be secure, especially for physicians using such devices, in order to prevent access and leakage of private patient information. It can also sell this data to unscrupulous companies.

Patient confidentiality…
 Electronic health records raise potential privacy issues. While it is estimated that hospitals can save up to 30% in administrative costs by using wearable devices, this may lead to possible unauthorized access to private patient information. it won’t be long until technology reaches a point where users’ information is collected and this raises an issue with technology breaching users’ personal information. Deletion of data is not so easy because of the interconnected nature of databases.

Cost of hi-tech! $wag!

Wearables seem cool , but the majority of studies show that consumers, still find wearable technology to be too expensive. From $349 for the Apple Watch, $249 for a pair of wireless earbuds, $300 for a connected shirt, bracelet…and so on, indeed the cost of purchasing wearable technology seems to be more of a luxury rather than a necessity (for now).

 While wearable haelthcare technologies promise improvements in clinical services and the reduction in financial costs, most devices are still in the process of being upgraded. However, as technology has nowhere to go but up, the possibilities of mobile healthcare apps and wearable technologies are endless. Medical wearables are here to stay, and the ultimate choice is yours to make, taking in consideration privacy and security issues.


References:

https://www.byteflies.com/

https://www.wearable-technologies.com/2019/06/june-2019/

https://www.clodoc.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-wearable-technologies

https://www.whatech.com/mobile-apps/blog/507268-what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-wearable-techs-in-the-health-sector