We always consult with doctors, fitness professionals, physicians, etc. for our health and fitness needs. While that one-on-one consultation is valuable and could potentially improve and solve our health problems, the biggest issue we have is a lack of prevention. The fact that we are not aware that our body produces data that could help us prevent these various diseases and health ailments makes us more susceptible to them and at the mercy of our nearest doctor/physician.
The most common chronic diseases in the United States are Cardiovascular, Hypertension, High Cholesterol, Arthritis, Diabetes, Depression, Kidney Disease, and Obesity. These diseases are responsible for the death of 70% of Americans which totals about 1.7 million people per year. Despite the amount of doctor’s appointments and regular check-ins, the health care system is flawed due to the fact that disease prevention is placed at a lower priority than prescriptive treatment.
The rise of technology has paved way for a lot of innovation in some of the most archaic industries and the healthcare industry has yet to tap into the potential of technology and data. While there are apps such as Epic, Cerner, Amwell, and Dr on Demand are creating solutions to many of the issues such as care delivery, cost, innovation, compliance and operations that are neglected within the industry. Even with these apps, there are concerns such as Data integrity, security, Data overload, and insurance.
With technological innovations come a sea of data that have yet to be interpreted or even sorted. This data comes from wearable technology and IoT devices that enable the movement of Quantified Self to take place. The movement of Quantified Self is also called lifelogging, which means incorporating technology into data acquisition on many aspects of a person’s daily life in terms of inputs, states, and performance. This movement has the ability to take the healthcare industry by storm due to the fact that the understanding of this data by the regular person could PREVENT these chronic diseases. Doctors could also use this data and monitor their patients without having them physically there. This data allows the patients to know themselves better and understand when different parts of their body are not functioning correctly so that they can get to their doctor or physician in time to PREVENT those diseases from occurring in the first place. All that is missing is a mechanism that translates these millions of data into valuable pieces of information that can be interpreted by the every day user.
The ultimate change in healthcare will come through data and the inability to interpret the sea of data that is produced through wearables will inhibit the healthcare and fitness industry from progressing far past their current projected capabilities.