Wearables Could Shift the Health Care Landscape
You might think you know your body best, but if companies like Google and Apple can continue to sell the general public on wearable devices and fitness applications, some plastic band wrapped around your wrist might be the best judge of overall health.
That fact at face value isn’t all that revolutionary. However, upcoming programs such as Apple HealthKit and Google Fit that transmit critical data from your body to the cloud could alter certain aspects of our ever-contentious health care system.
How? If you wear devices that track your health each and every minute, medical professionals would have better access to your specific lifestyle, cause of ailments, and even the number of calories you’re burning each day. These programs act like a map that leads doctors through detailed routes that might pinpoint the exact cause and scope of an illness, thanks to the big data transmitted from wearables.
Adoption won’t be clean or quick. If you look back to 2008, Google Health was being touted as a data aggregation service meant to benefit both patients and health care providers. But poor marketing, sparse third-party support, and privacy concerns stopped the seemingly innovative service before it could gain a serious foothold in the marketplace.
The stakes and the technology being used are different this time around, though. Fitbits, Nike FuelBands, and smartphones will likely be the source of data tracking instead of actual health care providers. While the market viability of pure fitness wearables is still uncertain, a simple app on your iPhone could act as a cost-effective alternative.
The concept of a “fitness ecosystem” might just be appealing enough to get people off their couches and onto a treadmill, as having a profile that’s easily transmittable to just about any device can make getting healthier a more enjoyable experience. Personal fitness and health care are hot topics that will likely only get hotter. So for companies like Apple and Google, now might be the perfect time to take that step.
