Consumers are showing an increasing demand for comfortable wearable technology that can help them monitor their health. These devices, such as fitness trackers, smartwatches, biosensors, and intelligent armbands, collect users’ health data. In many cases, healthcare professionals can access this data instantly too. Healthcare smart wearable systems have evolved to perform various advanced operations such as remote patient monitoring and early diagnostics. This is possible thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, intelligent and medical sensors.
The application of AI in healthcare
Healthcare wearables offer unique advantages to providers and patients due to their mobile nature, accuracy, and ease of use. The type of AI they leverage is often called weak, or narrow, AI. However, these capabilities are more than enough for wearables to enhance lifestyle and manage emergencies.
For example, AI-powered wearables can simplify the lives of patients with chronic conditions after a hospital discharge. The technology combines Wi-Fi armbands that record vitals, provide medication reminders, and live chat with doctors when needed. Wearables are also helpful for remote heart monitoring. With machine learning algorithms included in heart monitors and smartphone apps, clinicians can monitor heart conditions remotely, allowing them to detect early signs of structural heart disease and identify murmurs that would be too hard for the human ear to catch.
AI in MedTech wearables for preventive care
The world is facing an escalating crisis: a growing population of the elderly and obese. Technology can relieve pressure from this strain, and prevention is the key.
Today, one of the world’s number one causes of death is cardiovascular disease. Wearable devices offer a unique opportunity for both patients and health professionals to begin resolving this issue. On the one hand, they help people maintain their health goals and democratise healthcare data. On the other, they assist doctors in implementing treatment plans based on assessing large bodies of data.
Today’s wearables are small, comfortable, and accurate. Some sensors are even implanted under the skin, gauging blood pressure and glucose levels without the patient having to worry about managing them. Some devices can monitor environmental factors that exacerbate asthma, and others identify emerging symptoms for congestive heart failure.
AI-powered wearables can make predictions on the risk and management of disease and help patients live a healthier, more active lifestyle. This type of consumer healthcare technology can reduce many lifestyle-inflicted chronic illnesses and ease the pressures of the public health system.
AI in wearables assists with remote consultations
Wearable technology can track patient vitals such as heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure and transmit their data to care providers throughout the day. This allows for easy, ongoing evaluation and can prevent visits to the emergency department. If emergency care is needed, telemedicine devices can send readings to the hospital while on-route and let it better prepare for the patient’s arrival. This difference can be life-saving, particularly in the case of a stroke or a heart attack.
If patients have questions about their health or need advice, they can also schedule a telemedicine appointment. Data captured by the wearable is automatically uploaded to the cloud and is easy to share with professionals who can advise on treatment. The ability of wearables to store and transmit biometric data creates a picture of a patient in near real-time.
AI also helps with diagnosing conditions, making it easy to create personalised reminders for medications and routine checks. The tracking of vitals is visible to both the care provider and the patient, creating more transparency and trust. Any abnormalities detected can be instantly shared with the physician, while AI algorithms can determine when a situation calls for contacting the health care team; if the patient has questions or concerns, they know the doctor can be one click or chat away.
Wearable technology and telemedicine make healthcare more accessible. They also facilitate timely interventions that can keep patients out of the hospital – while still receiving ongoing quality healthcare.
Improving data on individual patients
AI-powered wearables are not just good for making the most of big data. They can also enhance precise information about individual patients to find the best solutions tailored to them.
One aspect where enhanced data can improve treatment is genomics. A person has an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 genes, which interact in complex ways with each other and with their environment. Understanding the large amounts of data generated from these interconnections is a daunting, if not unfeasible, task for human intelligence. Using AI on genomic data is faster and more economical. Genetic sequencing used to cost thousands of dollars. Today, a person can have their whole genome sequenced for a tenth of that, opening the door to genuinely individualised medicine.
Personalised medicine helps professionals make clinical decisions based on a subject’s data. An individual’s genetics can influence the effectiveness of a particular therapeutic but wearables are already benefiting from new technologies. For example, there are now ingestible biosensors that can measure a drug’s absorption rate for a specific patient.
Many people have incorporated wearable fitness trackers into their daily routine and are becoming more interested in the data linked to their health. Shortly, devices will measure temperature, steps, or active minutes and remind patients when to take prescriptions and show how effective they are. Actual patient data is one of the best ways to inform good decision making, humanising drug and technology development.
Wearable Software with Fluffy Spider
Fluffy Spider Technologies creates commercially viable systems for sensor technology that manage the ongoing data feed from the sensor’s local storage to a permanent location, such as the cloud, where the data integrates with electronic health and medical records.
High-quality commercial software requires a dedicated team with the relevant experience. We can work with you through the entire process, from concept to commercialisation.
Visit our healthcare integration software and services page to learn more about our capabilities and solutions.
