"A clinician touches base with the patient if there's a reading that's out of parameter, and can intervene before they get sicker," says Kvedar, who has studied the program. The patients each got an Internet-connected weight scale and blood pressure cuff that streamed data to the medical team.Īll Tech Considered The Internet Of Things Is Becoming More Difficult To Escape Many of these were created for people who are simply interested in personal metrics, but such devices are finding their way into programs designed to support patients who have chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or dementia.īoston's Massachusetts General Hospital, which is managed by Partners HealthCare, tried one such monitoring program for patients with heart failure. Other firms are already converting more traditional health instruments - like blood pressure cuffs, weight scales and heart monitors - into consumer electronics. But the hope is that sleepers on a smart bed who have been alerted could help their doctor catch health issues before they fully develop - or at least catch such conditions earlier. You'd still want to ask your doctor to do a more thorough examination, he says. The clinical accuracy and privacy of many devices remain unproved.Īs for Sleep Number, Bils says the company isn't aiming to actually diagnose anything. And not everyone believes the changes that personal health trackers are bringing will be good. But that will take separating useful devices and data from superfluous ones - no easy task. Some of these devices will lead to a better health care system, Kvedar predicts, with cheaper, more efficient care. Joseph Kvedar, the vice president for connected health at Partners HealthCare in Boston, and an associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School. "There's definitely an explosion of these things," says Dr. With sensors that can collect data on body movements, heart rate, blood pressure and other metrics, the list of health trackers that go beyond activity trackers like Fitbits gets longer each year. It's one thing to track your heart rate, pulse or other movements with a smart watch or other consumer electronics, researchers say, but quite another to rely on the device to diagnose a disease.
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