Can Consumer Devices Improve Health Outcomes?
A friend of mine once had a diabetic episode that might have been fatal had he not been on the phone when it occurred. The friend he was speaking with called 911 and a tragedy was averted. His insulin pump had malfunctioned, causing a dangerously low blood sugar count. I was struck by the fact that although the pump was also reading his blood sugar levels, it couldn’t notify first responders that there was a problem.
When you think about it, there are many (less dramatic!) opportunities where consumer devices could provide data to doctors that would improve health outcomes. At HLTH VRTL 2020, Rachel Jiang spoke about some possibilities that Amazon Alexa Health and Wellness is looking into, and that got me thinking. Imagine going for your yearly check-up: Your doctor pulls up your electronic medical record (EMR) and not only has access to her own information on you, but also to daily vitals from your Apple Watch, physical activity levels from your Peloton, and daily nutrition from MyFitnessPal. Maybe Alexa checks in on your mood each day and that data has also been fed into your EMR to help connect mental health with physical health.
Doctors typically ask what we eat, how much we drink, and how much exercise we get. Our answers are (probably) not data based, and may err on the optimistic side. In addition, the vitals taken by the physician assistant are a snapshot of a point in time. A blood pressure reading taken once a year doesn’t give the physician the full picture. In fact, if you have white-coat syndrome like I do, it gives them an inaccurate picture.
If your provider could access all of the information collected by smartphones and smartwatches, nutrition apps meditation apps, and yes, insulin pumps, would it improve quality of care? While some devices need improvement to be more reliable, and there are integration and privacy challenges to be solved – how to send data safely and securely to that EMR – there’s no reason to think we will remain stuck in the current state. The day will come when our physicians have actual data on our behaviors that influence our health (as scary as that may be) and will provide better care because off of it. We’re not there yet, but I’m looking forward to the day when I can say “Hey Alexa! Send my health data to my doctor for my appointment tomorrow.”
The second annual HLTH conference on innovation in healthcare took place in October, and Mercer again sponsored a series of sessions for employers. We encourage you to explore these 30-minute sessions. They begin with a short introduction from an industry CEO, followed by an interactive discussion between two to three employers.