According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, there will be a Estimated shortage By 2034, the number of junior and specialist physicians will reach 37,800 to 124,000. With the significant reduction in the number of doctors, the rising cost of medical care and the increase in patients with chronic diseases, the use of technology to monitor and treat patients more effectively has become more urgent than ever.
Harnessing the power of wearable devices for remote patient monitoring
As the number of doctors decreases, medical efficiency will become more and more important. Wearable devices are the new frontier of healthcare, providing historical longitudinal data and 24-hour continuous physiological monitoring; and early detection of chronic diseases and acute attacks based on personalized physiological baselines. Wearable devices allow doctors, nurses and other clinical staff to monitor patients-whether they are in the hospital or at home. By remotely measuring the patient’s physical condition in real time, the hospital can free up beds, and doctors can monitor the patient’s vital signs anytime and anywhere, thereby improving efficiency.
With the help of wearable devices, doctors and patients can monitor their physiological systems-cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, immune, muscle, nerve, kidney, reproductive, respiratory and skeletal systems-from monitoring blood pressure and heart rate to detecting Covid symptoms, Wearable devices provide patients with powerful insights and complement doctors’ ability to provide the most accurate diagnosis and care. Since 85% of health costs today are related to chronic diseases, the importance of early monitoring and diagnosis cannot be overemphasized.
The role of biometrics
Wearable electronic devices are an excellent mobile choice for detecting physiological parameters of the wearer and using light-based sensors and other sensors to generate biometrics. In the $70 billion wearable technology market in 2019, $20 billion in revenue comes from wearable medical devices.
Biometrics is usually defined as a measurement performed on a person to help us distinguish them from others. The biometric technology we are interested in can tell us information about human health functions or disease states. This includes vital signs such as heart rate and breathing rate, but also behavior, such as when someone sleeps or how much they exercise.
The information provided by high-resolution and continuous biometric technology goes far beyond basic behaviors and vital signs, because changes in biometric technology allow us to infer another layer of information that cannot be directly measured. For example, this includes sleep stages and so on. When someone is in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, their body becomes paralyzed and their heart rate variability is smaller than when the same person is in deep sleep. Combining sleep data with the treatment of acute and chronic diseases will lead to greater efficiency and better results-without wearable devices, general sleep data cannot be obtained to enhance daily care.
An important aspect of biometrics is that we can construct complex mathematical models to explain how all biometrics change over time, and detect abnormalities by finding the time when user data deviates from these patterns. These abnormalities are defined as user data. Rare event. These abnormalities provide clues that can be used to detect acute events (such as the onset of Covid-19) or chronic events (such as atherosclerosis that leads to gradual changes in the cardiovascular system).
Benefits of wearable devices
Wearable devices will record important biological characteristics of patients, even if they are healthy, in order to help find solutions when they are sick. It further establishes a unique and personalized physical health model and baseline for each person, and scans for abnormalities around the clock. These abnormalities may indicate the onset of acute diseases or the accelerated development of chronic diseases.
Once such anomalies are detected, it will advise users to contact health professionals and provide an opportunity to generate screening reports to help notify professionals in a GDPR-compliant manner, and they will then decide a method to diagnose if necessary. After diagnosis, provide medical professionals with dashboards to remotely monitor patients. This applies to acute and chronic diseases. Starting from Covid-19, sleep and arrhythmia (such as atrial fibrillation), and wearable devices can become powerful tools for doctors and clinicians to care for patients.
The future of wearables
Wearable devices can provide assistance in patient monitoring, surveillance, screening, diagnosis, treatment, post-treatment, and ongoing management. These devices also determine and confirm treatment efficiency based on real-time physiological feedback. They provide early detection of recurrence and indicate whether there is any deterioration in health after a period of improvement. In addition, wearable devices can provide physiological monitoring during clinical trials, such as in the case of new drug development, and provide early detection of adverse reactions. Wearable devices have been widely adopted, do not involve any major changes in user behavior, are highly scalable, and are accessible from a cost perspective.
With the increasing challenges facing the medical community in the next few years and the increasingly unhealthy American population, digital devices will become a key solution for patient care and remote patient monitoring. Using the power of technology to better understand the human body, wearable devices and remote patient monitoring truly represents the future of healthcare.
Photo: exdez, Getty Images
