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The new drug is the empowered patient, says medical tech expert
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ATLANTA – Clinicians can use data from wearable devices to track patient health just as a mechanic uses a check engine light on a car, Daniel Kraft, MD, inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA-approved device for minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founder of RegenMed Systems, said at MedPro 360, prior to SECO.
When a clinician is alerted that a patient’s health data is heading in the wrong direction via a wearable device, he or she can suggest an appointment to check in and re-evaluate.
There is a trove of patient wearable options on the market, he said.
Kraft told the story of his friend, Brett Bullington, a Silicon Valley advisor, who sustained a traumatic brain injury during a cycling accident in late 2012. He was in a coma for weeks and required a dozen surgeries.
Bullington started using a Jawbone UP band in January 2013 to track his steps, sleep and idle time, Kraft said. The device aided in his recovery because he could track his progress daily and celebrate small successes, such as achieving a few more steps than the day before.
The Jawbone became his trainer and health consultant.
Bullington now averages 8,000 steps per day and tracks his sleep, at about 9 hours a night, which is tremendously helping his recovery, Kraft said.
“Believe me, his neurosurgeons weren’t thinking of prescribing him a wearable as part of his recovery. This is just one example how these can be used in interesting ways,” he said.
This technology is moving from “quantified self,” where the wearer-consumer retains the data, to “quantified health,” which has comprehensive, health care-driven objective.
“It means that data is going to start to flow from you to your patients and from you to your clinicians,” Kraft said. “You can be the empowered consumer. You can own your data; you can share it with your clinician. That is a big sea change.”
It is now possible to check blood sugar on a wearable device that talks to a smartphone, he said. Wearable devices in shoes can be helpful to older patients and those with low vision, as it studies the gait of the wearer and can help identify potential falls, he said.
As the technology is growing and refining exponentially, it is also getting more compact and streamlined, he said.
“These exponentials are shrinking to where they can fit inside your eye glass frames,” Kraft added.
As wearables get more sophisticated, they are beginning to study the body from the inside, and Kraft called them “insideables.”
One example is a glucose monitor in contact lenses for patients with diabetes, which was created by Google, Kraft said. Another wearable helps with posture by vibrating when the wearer slouches.
Kraft wore a ring that tracks sleep, called Ōura.
From socks that can help manage neuropathy for diabetics to a teddy bear with technology built it to track a baby from the crib, wearables are here to stay and evolving quickly, he said.
“The fact is that we are always going to be online with our digital health data. The trick is what we do with it,” Kraft said.
“The new drug is the empowered patient,” he added.
WiFi can pick up the vital signs of up to 10 people in a room, he said. A health app on a patient’s smartphone can then integrate into the EMR seamlessly.
“The future will see a clinician getting alerts when patients’ health data is abnormal,” he said. “You’ll have ways of measuring data remotely and flagging data when patient data is abnormal.”
Kraft said that data can allow clinicians to be proactive in what he calls “predictalitics,” taking advantage of earlier detection.
He predicts a GPS for health care, guiding consumers to make better daily health choices.
“Think convergently, of all these technologies that can impact medicine today ... we are in an era of amazing change. Think of where all of these technologies are going to be integrating into your world,” Kraft concluded. – by Abigail Sutton
Reference:
Kraft D. The future of health and medicine: Where can technology take us? Presented at: MedPro 360; March 1; Atlanta.
Disclosure: Kraft is the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA-approved device for minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founded RegenMed Systems, a company developing
technologies to enable adult stem cell-based regenerative therapies.