The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has produced several opportunities for telehealth and digital health solutions to proliferate as resolutions for care continuity and personal health tracking. Consumer technologies such as “wearables”— smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other technologies that measure health metrics — are one such solution increasingly touted as the key to helping individuals take charge of their own health and track important health data. Through these devices, consumers can now measure health information such as heart rate, breathing rate, sleep hygiene, and blood-oxygen saturation. Consumer wearables have also been proposed as possible solutions to improve access and affordability to medical devices, as several low-cost offerings have entered an ever more competitive market.
This briefing explored the rise of consumer wearables as increasingly prevalent tools in health care delivery and as part of patient care plans. Panelists defined the differences between an FDA-approved medical device and consumer technologies that measure health metrics, explore the implications of consumer technologies used in medical contexts, and discuss implications for access, affordability, reliability, and equity.
This was the final event in Part II of the Alliance for Health Policy’s 2020 Signature Series focused on the voice of the patient. See previous events in this series here.
Speakers:
- Brian Kelly, M.D., President, Payer and Provider Solutions, IQVIA
- Van Krishnamoorthy, M.D., CEO, Tactile Navigation Tools
- Jasmaine McClain, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Avalere Health
- Kistein Monkhouse, MPH, Founder and CEO, Patient Orator
- Adimika Arthur, MPH, Executive Director, HealthTech for Medicaid (moderator)