Engaging Patients With IT They Can Wear
"Patients will pay for outcomes," stated Charlene Underwood, MBA, FHIMSS, senior director of Government and Industry Affairs for Siemens Medical Solutions, "not procedures."
Underwood delivered this statement as part of her keynote address at this year's HIMSS conference. How, though, to get better outcomes? Make sure patients are engaged in their own care, and make it easy for them. How? Enter wearable technology.
Healthcare delivery is being transformed by legislation and payment models designed to reduce costs while improving outcomes. These efforts, in part, are driven from the idea that improved engagement equals a better patient experience and significant cost savings.
"The days of providers and patients working in the dark with no real-time data must end," said Underwood in her HIMSS address. Answering the call for interactive, support-based technology is wearable tech.
"Instead of your cell phone understanding that your schedule is busy," Steve Huffman, CIO at Elkhart General Hospital, wrote in the March issue of Executive Insight, "it will soon be able to remind you which medicine to take, recommend meals based on your insulin levels and eating habits, communicate with your institution of care when you do not feel well and warn your family or medical personnel when a critical health event occurs."
Continuous glucose monitors and fitness and heart-rate monitors dominate the market, noted market research firm IMS Research in its report, "World Market for Wearable Technology - A Quantitative Market Assessment - 2012." And this trend is expected to continue. According to FierceMobileHealthcare, the report cites "increasing demand for actionable, real-time data in a range of applications" as the reason for the anticipated market growth, especially in the health IT market.
Last but absolutely not least is that the global market for wearable technology is expected to triple to $6 billion by 2016, according to IMS Research.
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